NAGASAKI SCHOOL (EARLY 19TH CENTURY)

Two Dutchmen with their Javanese servant

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Watercolour on paper, with printed paper surround

Painting: 80 x 26.3 cm

Scroll: 148 x 29.5 cm

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Exhibited:
Exposorium Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Kõmõ-Jin, Roodharige Vreemdelingen Op Deshima, Nagasaki prenten en schilderingen uit de 18e en 19e eeuw, 1 - 31 March 1983

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Literature:

Illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, no. 37

 

Provenance:
Private collection, the Netherlands

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Note:

The man on the right is supposed to
be “Opperhoofd” Jan Cock Blomhoff. During his first stay on Deshima from 1811 till 1813, Jan Cock Blomhoff was kept company by yujo (a fille de joie) Itohagi who begot him a daughter in 1812. In 1817 Blomhoff returned to Deshima but now together with his wife Titia and his little son Johannes. However, the Japanese authorities did not allow European women to stay on Deshima and after Titia and Johannes had been forced to leave Blomhoff again sought consolation with Itohagi. When Blomhoff left Deshima for the last time in 1824 he left his yujo well provided. He gave her two dromedaries that initially had been intended as a gift to the Shogun but had been turned down. These unknown animals in Japan provided Itohagi with a nice income when she displayed them to the public for money.