Browse Items (63 total)
- Collection: West Meets East
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The city of Yedo or Edo (now Tokyo) [detail].
Between 1630 and 1830 Japan's borders were virtually closed to western visitors. The only Europeans allowed into Japan were the Dutch. Atlas Japannensis: being remarkable addresses by way of embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces…
Textile patterns.
This book contains 64 colourful printed textile patterns produced by the Japanese artist Keika Hasegawa, who flourished c. 1893-1905. The pages are double folded in the Japanese style. Kyoka zuan is one of the important collections of textile…
Signing of the Treaty of Teintsin.
Lawless proceedings in the Canton river, the city of Peking, joss-houses, the Roman Catholic mission, military promenades at Shanghai, the Yangtze, Chinese prostitutes, first views of Deshima and Nagasaki (Japan), the persecution of Christians,…
Settling debts at a merchants house.
A typical scene at a merchant's house during the year-end when all outstanding bills must be settled. One clerk works the abacus, another weighs the silver and a third makes entries in the ledger. Three tradesmen have arrived to present their final…
Scene from the Spectacle of "The Sun and Moon".
"One of the most favourite mysteries presented by the strolling companies in the southern provinces, is "The Spectacle of the Sun and Moon" (Allom, 1842, v II, p. 28).
Regni chinensis descriptio [front cover].
In 1611, the Flemish Jesuit missionary Nicolas Trigault reached Peking (Beijing), one year after the death of Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), the founder of the Jesuit mission in China. On his return to Rome, Trigault translated Ricci's memoirs into Latin…
Raree-Show at Lin-Sin-Chow.
"The spectators and auditors at the raree-show in Lin-sin-choo belong to the industrious and humbler classes" (Allom, c.1842, v. I, p. 48).
Playing at Shuttlecock with the feet.
"Near to the afflux of the Tchang-ho with the Cha-ho, river of floodgates, or imperial canal, is a splendid octagonal pagoda : it consists of nine stories, adorned with projecting eves, and it tapers with a remarkably gradual and graceful…
Novissima Sinica [title page].
'I consider it a singular plan of the fates that human cultivation and refinement should today be concentrated, as it were, in the two extremes of our continent, in Europe and in Tshina (as they call it), which adorns the Orient as Europe does the…
Momotaro.
Chirimen books are thought to have been invented in August 1885, when a Japanese fairy tale series was published by Hasegawa Takejiro (1853-1936). The books were illustrated by Sensei Eitaku. Thirty-one popular Japanese folktales were translated…
Modus Scribendi.
"The Society of Jesus was founded in 1539 by St Ignatius of Loyola. From their base at Goa, India, the Jesuits ventured forth to Japan and China: their goal to spread Christianity and promote the work of the Society. Over the years, their written…
Map of Laputa and Luggnag.
The Magistrates of the Town hearing of my Letter, received me as a Publick Minister, they provided me with Carriages and Servants, and bore my Charges to Yedo [Tokyo], where I was admitted to an Audience, and delivered my Letter, which was opened…
Life in the Chinese royal household [02].
A rare 1880s illustration on pith-paper of a scene in the Chinese Royal household.
Life in the Chinese Royal Household [01].
A rare 1880s illustration on pith-paper of a scene in the Chinese Royal household.
Kotto : being Japanese curios, with sundry cobwebs [front cover].
This first edition contains a selection of Japanese legends and stories, including nine tales from old Japanese books to illustrate some strange beliefs. Hearn adds: 'They are only curios.'
Japanese women, Simoda.
From the middle of the seventeenth to the beginning of the nineteenth-century, Japan, through the Tokugawa Shōgunate, was successful in rigorously enforcing a policy of seclusion. No Europeans were allowed into Japan except the Dutch who were…
Japan, an attempt at interpretation [front cover].
Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) is almost as Japanese as haiku. Both are an art form, an institution in Japan. Haiku is indigenous to the nation; Hearn became a Japanese citizen and married a Japanese [Setsu Koizumi], taking the name Yakumo Koizumi. His…