Name: A Rare and Unusual Glass Telescope and Lacquered Leather Case
Brand: EDO PERIOD (LATE 18TH - EARLY 19TH CENTURY)
Price: 18000.00 GBP
Availability: SoldOut

A Rare and Unusual Glass Telescope and Lacquered Leather Case
Edo period (late 18th - early 19th century)
Decorated in various colours beneath glass that is finely wheel-engraved and painted in further colours and gilt with flowers, foliage and geometric designs, the glass sections separated by silverwork with scrolling foliage, copper rims; the fitted cylindrical case of lacquered leather and paper with the bands of European-style ornament impressed and applied with gold and lacquer; with a fitted silk pouch and a wood box
Telescope 56.7cm. long, fitted case 68.3cm. long

Published
Suntory Museum of Art ed., Japanese glass: Stylish vessels, playful shapes, exhibition catalogue, (Tokyo, 2010), no. 18.

Exhibited
Suntory Museum of Art, Tokyo, 27 March – 23 May 2010

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Lot Essay

It is believed that the telescope was first imported to Japan as a gift from King James I (1566-1625) to the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616) in 1613. Since then, at least 169 telescopes were imported to Japan via the Dutch East India Company mainly as tributes to the country’s rulers and, a while after the seclusion policy was executed, making telescopes started in Japan mainly in Nagasaki.¹

The well-known opticians in Edo period were Mori Nizaemon (1673-1754) of Nagasaki and Iwahashi Zenbei (1756-1811) of Osaka. The important role played by telescopes, of both European and Japanese manufacture, in the formation of middle- and late-Edo visual culture is discussed in detailed in Timon Screech, The Western Scientific Gaze and Popular Imagery in Later Edo Japan, (Cambridge, 1996), especially p. 212-215.

1. Kazuho Soeda, Edo jidai no boenkyo to kakucho sareta shikaku no kaigaka [Telescopes in Edo period and pictorialisation of expanded vision], in the research bulletin of Aichi Prefectural museum (2013), vol. 20, p. 25-27 (see
http:/www-art.aac.pref.aichi.jp/research/pdf/2013Bulletin_Soeda.pdf).