KAWAKAMI (Sumio).
Hirado genso [Hirado fantasy].
The Dutch trading port of Hirado, Nagasaki
Kawakami Sumio’s ‘fantasy’ of Dutch merchants at Hirado, the port call at Nagasaki before they were strictly instructed only to enter at Dejima.
Though there is no text, the six plates follow the journey of ship leaving the Netherlands, a round table of merchants feasting, the goods entering Japan, and lastly a couple, rather extravagantly dressed – the man, presumably Japanese, in a kimono, and the woman in a fine dress holding a single tulip.
The first edition of this book was printed in 1950 in an edition of 50 copies, and was also exhibited at the 24th Kokugakai exhibition (an annual group show of printmakers and artists) in the same year. The Osaka publisher Gohachi made very high-quality reprints of Kawakami’s works, of which this is one such example. The colophon points out that the book was printed by Iwase Koichi (most likely from Kawakami’s original blocks) with hand colouring by Kawakami himself.
