A remarkable cultural exchange

(Workshop of) Kawahara Keiga (1786–c. 1860), attributed to.

Album of natural history drawings.

Japan (Nagasaki?), ca. 1850.

Album containing 252 watercolour drawings with manuscript Japanese captions, on European laid paper, each image on a single page. Originally bound in the Japanese fukurotoji (pouch-binding) format and interleaved with protective tissue guards. 20 × 17 cm.

Later (ca. 1900) European green half morocco with gilt tooling and linen sides.

A charming album of 252 Japanese watercolour drawings of local plants and animals made in the European scientific pictorial tradition, offering an intriguing blend of Japanese and Western culture. The delicate drawings depict fruits, flowers, insects, amphibians, fish, and other marine animals, provided with calligraphic titles and annotations.
               The work relates closely to the natural history drawings associated with Kawahara Keiga (1786–c. 1860), the Nagasaki-based painter who, under commission from Philipp Franz von Siebold, produced extensive visual documentation of Japanese flora and fauna for Western scientific use, notably in Fauna Japonica and Flora Japonica. Keiga’s work represents a highly developed synthesis of Japanese pictorial practice and European empirical observation, and the present album clearly draws on this visual language, while differing from it in significant respects.
               Comparison with the Keiga album (RV-360-958) in the Wereldmuseum Leiden suggests indeed a close relationship in format, subject matter, and compositional approach. In both cases, the motifs are typically isolated against a plain ground and presented in a consistent scale. The drawings in the present album, however, appear more lively and animated in character, whereas those associated with Keiga tend toward a more strictly descriptive and encyclopedic mode. Fish are rendered with a sense of movement, birds appear either perched or in flight, and certain insects are given a subtly expressive quality. Particularly notable is the consistent polychrome and stylised treatment of the eyes. This feature, together with the more decorative handling of form, is not characteristic of Keiga’s documented scientific work. These observations suggest that the album is not by Keiga himself, but rather by a workshop hand or a closely related independent artist operating within the same Nagasaki–Dejima milieu.
               The album was conceived as a coherent bound object rather than a working portfolio of studies. Its uniform format, sequencing, and stylistic consistency indicate production as a complete series, likely intended for presentation or sale rather than strictly scientific use. In the early to mid-nineteenth century, artists in Nagasaki produced works both for scientific purposes and for foreign patrons connected to the Dutch trading post at Dejima. Keiga is known to have maintained a studio in which assistants executed copies and variants of his compositions, often unsigned, making precise attribution difficult. The absence of mammals and human figures further aligns with the documented specialisation of Keiga and his circle in fish, plants, and related subjects.

The album may be understood as a reinterpretation of Keiga’s empirically oriented style, here adapted into a more decorative and expressive serial presentation.

Provenance: German private collection.

Condition: binding rubbed, structurally restored; full conservation report available. The drawings generally very well preserved, with occasional light spotting and minor toning, colours fresh.