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)