Engelbert Kaempfer's trip to Japan (1690-1692): drawings and notes on an impenetrable country

Abstract

From 1639, and until de mid-nineteenth century, Japan maintained an isolationist foreign policy and all relations with the Western countries, originated nearly one hundred years before, were broken. The Japanese government only made an exception with the Dutch East India Company, who had the privilege of being the only Europeans with access to the Japanese archipelago. Thanks to this prerogative, between 1690 and 1692, the German doctor Engelbert Kaempfer was able to visit the Land of the Rising Sun, traveling twice to the court of the sogún in Edo (Tokyo). As a result of these experiences, he took annotations and made drawings portraying several characteristics of those inaccessible islands. Many of these materials were published years after in his book The History of Japan (London, 1727). Nevertheless a large number of his designs, of incalculable historical value, remained unedited in the shadows of his archives. In this paper, we will try to shed light upon these sketches and illustrations.