Originally composed by the rangakusha [scholar of Dutch learning] Otsuki Gentaku in 1807, the richly illustrated Kankai ibun records the extraordinary adventures of a group of sailors from Sendai, north eastern Honshu, as described to him during a series of interviews in the two preceding years. During a coastal journey from their home city to Edo in 1793 the sailors were blown off-course and following a voyage of several months, were subsequently shipwrecked on one of the Aleutian islands. The four survivors were arrested, sent to Siberia and then St. Petersburg, where they became Japanese language tutors. They finally managed to gain consent to return to Japan after eight years in Russia, reaching Nagasaki with the Rezanov mission in 1804, whose purpose was to establish diplomatic ties between Russia and Japan.

A number of manuscript versions of Kankai Ibun exist, produced at various dates from 1806 to the end of the 19th century. Being based on oral accounts, the illustrations are often somewhat fanciful and are obviously influenced by earlier books detailing foreigners in distant lands. The many illustrations include a world map, the journey across the Russian Arctic (including depictions of animals), people and places in late 18th century Russia - a group watching a hot-air balloon with a telescope, dog and horse-sledges, a dining scene, soldiers in uniform, and portraits of Catherine the Great and Tsar Alexander I.

Provenance:
James E. Fagan (1926-2011) was an American collector with a special interest in the introduction of Western culture and technology to Japan’s closed Edo-era society (1603-1868), also known as the Tokugawa period. Mr Fagan studied Japanese language and history at Stanford University, and served as a US Naval officer in the Pacific theatre. He then lived and worked in Japan as an attorney in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

During this time, Fagan assembled and researched his collection of rare Edo-era woodblock and manuscript maps, prints and books not available outside Japan. Highlights include Nagasaki-e (showing the Japanese fascination with the Dutch East Indies (VOC) outpost at Deshima island), early Rangaku examinations of Western science and languages, the evolution of Japanese cartographic knowledge, and the study of English and Russian military might and technology. Imaginative illustrations and maps, from Japanese castaways reporting back to the Japanese Court, also provide a glimpse of how the Western world appeared to the first Japanese to circumnavigate the globe.

The collection demonstrates Japan’s keen curiosity about the Western world during its long isolationist period, and the artful way the Japanese perspective captures the impact of European contact.