A SCROLL AND AN ALBUM OF REPRODUCTIONS OF EROTIC PAINTINGS BY KAWAHARA KEIGA (1786-1860?)

Printed on canvas, comprising eight reproductions of erotic scenes depicting Captain Jan Cock Blomhoff and other Westerners with European and Japanese women by Kawahara Keiga, mounted in silk as a scroll and inscribed in Chinese reading Chun gong tu, together with an album containing five simillar erotic scenes, each scene 18cm high, 24cm long, 20th century (2)

Kawahara Keiga (1786-1860?) was a Japanese painter specialising in animals, plants and landscapes. With a special permission from the Japanese government Kawahara worked at Dejima island, the Dutch trading colony in the harbour of Nagasaki from 1811 to 1842, where he learned Western paintg techniques from Carl Hubert de Villeneuve (1800–1874). Kawahara later travelled to Edo with some of his Wester partons but was subsequently persecuted and accused of espionage.

Captain Jan Cock Blomhoff (1779-1853), the head of VOC in Japan and director of Dejima between 1817-1824 and his family were one of the first Westerners to live in Japan in early 19th century and therefore objects of understandable curiosity.