Name: A RARE LACQUERED LEATHER AND PAPIER-MÂCHÉ TELESCOPE
Brand: EDO PERIOD (18TH CENTURY)
Price: 2800.00 GBP
Availability: SoldOut

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

A Rare Lacquered Leather and Papier-Mâché Telescope
Edo period (18th century)
In seven sections, the wider end fitted with a cow horn disc pierced with a central hole to maximise use of the centre of the lens, the largest, outermost section of lacquered leather and the rest except the two smallest sections of papier-mâché, impressed and applied with gold lacquer on a black ground with bands of European style patterns including flowers, scrolling foliage and geometric designs, two covers for both ends
32cm. long (when retracted with two end covers), approx. 90cm. long (when fully extended)

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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 detail in Timon Screech, The Western Scientific Gaze and Popular Imagery in Later Edo Japan, (Cambridge, 1996), especially p. 212-215.

For a similar but very much smaller example see NHK Service Center and Siebold Council, Chikuzo 350-shunen Nagasaki Dejima ten [Exhibition commemorating the 350th anniversary of Dejima in Nagasaki] (Tokyo and Osaka, 1986), cat. no. 134 and for another example see Doris Croissant and Lothar Ledderose (eds.), Japan und Europa, 1543-1929 (exhibition catalogue; Berlin: Argon Verlag, 1993), pl. 61 (p. 98); for a kenbikyo [microscope] with related designs see NHK Service Center, op. cit., cat. no. 133.

For a further example in the Kobe City Museum collection, go to:
http://www.city.kobe.lg.jp/culture/culture/institution/museum/meihin_new/500.html

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)