Deshima in Nagasaki Harbor, van der Aa Bird's-Eye View, circa 1710

An original antique copper engraving giving a bird's-eye view of Deshima, the fan-shaped artificial island in Nagasaki harbor that held the Dutch East India Company's trading post in Japan. The caption is lettered in French and Dutch, "Magazin de la Compagnie dans l'Isle de Disma." and "De Logie voor NANGASACKI op 't Eylandt Schisma." Every building on the island is drawn and the plan of the whole is legible at a glance: the single bridge to the mainland, the street between the warehouses, the gardens, the sea gate and the steps down to the water. Japanese officials and bearers are at work on the quays, ships' boats lie alongside, and a numbered key from one to five runs down both sides of the plate.

The plate carries the imprint "A LEIDE, Chez Pierre vander Aa." and the plate number 15. It is an original copper engraving published by Pieter van der Aa at Leiden in the early eighteenth century. Van der Aa was the most prolific Dutch publisher of voyages and topographical views of his generation, reissuing the accounts of Dutch travel in Asia in large illustrated series, and the Deshima plates descend from reports and drawings brought back from Nagasaki by company servants. The numbered key is printed in Dutch at the left of the view and in French at the right. The impression is uncolored, printed in black on heavy laid paper as van der Aa issued it.

The key is what makes this sheet exceptional. It names, in Dutch at the left and in French at the right, the steps where goods were loaded and unloaded, the house where the Japanese inspectors sat, the house of the chief factor, the buttery and the auction house where cargo was offered for sale: the working mechanism of the trade, set out item by item. From the seventeenth century until the middle of the nineteenth, Deshima was the only point of contact between Japan and Europe, and everything Europe learned of Japan for two centuries crossed that short bridge. Views of the island by van der Aa and Montanus are among the most sought-after Japan subjects. Framed alone, it is a sheet people stop in front of and read.

The top edge is uneven in one place. Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Marked handling soiling along all four edges. Scattered foxing in the margin. Slight wear at the bottom left and top right corners.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.