Picturing Japan

The ink painting in the pictures depicts our mermaid: we can see how close the subject of the painting and the mermaid specimen are in the position of the arms and hands, in the curve of the tail, in the presence of the hair, and in the striking facial expression.

The painting was painted by Kawahara Keiga (1786- ?) with ink and pigments on silk, and has been dated between 1820 and 1823, which coincides with the time when Jan Cock Blomhoff resided on Deshima. Blomhoff and Keiga have a special connection: Blomhoff was the first Dutch trader to import Keiga’s paintings into the Netherlands, where most of his oeuvre is now located.

Keiga had learned to paint from Ishizaki Yūshi (1768-1846), a famous painter of the Nagasaki area, who was renowned for his mastery of the yōga (洋画) style of painting, painting in Western style, and who was officially tasked to appraise and sketch foreign artworks and goods imported into Japan, and therefore featured a high degree of realism in his works.

Like his master, Keiga also played a strong role in Dutch-Japanese trading relations: he was in fact tasked to offer his services to the Dutch tradesmen resident on Deshima, and would paint artworks based on their commissions. As a consequence, Kawahara Keiga painted all things of interest to the foreigners: Japanese customs, daily life, and the flora and fauna of the archipelago.

The mermaid paintings are part of this production, most probably commissioned by Jan Cock Blomhoff. In his very own style, Keiga depicted the mermaid in its every detail: from the scales of the tail, to the wrinkles of the skin, and the individual hair, portraying it as if it were a scientific specimen, or an example of Japanese fauna.K. Vos and M. Forrer, Kawahara Keiga: Fotograaf zonder Camera, (Leiden: Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, 1987)