OTSUKI, Gentaku - MATSUMOTO, Gaku.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Portfolio of facsimile drawings from Kankai ibun. First edition, celebrating the first Japanese people to circumnavigate the world. The illustrations are taken from Kankai ibun and show the Russian Tsar and Tsarina, a map of their route, a cathedral, Hawai'ian islanders, various marine life, the port of Nagasaki, and an early airship. Only one other copy is recorded on WorldCat.In late 1793, the vessel Wakamiya-maru set sail for Edo, but storms drove it off course to the Aleutian Islands. After months, the crew were discovered and taken to Russia, where they remained for the next decade. In 1803, Tsar Alexander I asked the 10 surviving crewmen whether they wished to return to Japan aboard Krusenstern and Rezanov's famous circumnavigation. Four agreed – Tsudayu, Gihee, Sahei, and Tajuro – joined by a fifth, Zenroku, who served as Rezanov's interpreter. They arrived in Nagasaki in 1804, being the first Japanese people to travel around the world. Since leaving Japan was punishable by death, they were then interrogated by the scholar Otsuki Gentaku, whose write-up of the interviews, Kankai ibun, circulated in manuscript in 16 volumes from 1807.The illustrations here were copied from an 1832 manuscript of Kankai ibun. The portfolio was distributed at the first World Trade Centers Association General Assembly, held in Tokyo in 1970.

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