Browse Items (63 total)
- Collection: West Meets East
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Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China [front cover].
In 1844, Evariste Régis Huc (1813-1860), a French Lazarist missionary, was ordered to explore the area surrounding the mission at Si-Wang (Hsi-wan-tse), about 200 kilometres to the northwest of Peking (Beijing). He and his companion, Joseph Gabet,…
Playing at Shuttlecock with the feet.
"Near to the afflux of the Tchang-ho with the Cha-ho, river of floodgates, or imperial canal, is a splendid octagonal pagoda : it consists of nine stories, adorned with projecting eves, and it tapers with a remarkably gradual and graceful…
Camps and trails in China [front cover].
Roy Andrews (1884-1960) was an explorer, and long-time curator and director of the American Museum of Natural History. His Asiatic Zoological Expedition of 1916-17 was written up in his "Camps and Trails in China". The pagoda on the cover is found at…
Boudoir and Bed-chamber of a Lady of rank.
"Less crowded with articles of furniture than the apartments of ladies of quality in England, the decorations of a bedchamber and boudoir in China are not less costly or complete - a suite of rooms being appropriated to the females of the mandarin's…
The Shogun's audience.
A. Is the throne or Audience-seat of his majesty, where he shows himself to his Princes and Nobles.
B. Are the buildings in which his Majesty is housed, consisting of more than seventy dwelling-places.
C. Are the buildings in which his majesty…
B. Are the buildings in which his Majesty is housed, consisting of more than seventy dwelling-places.
C. Are the buildings in which his majesty…
The retinue of the Dutch Ambassadors in their journey to Court.
In 1691 Kaempfer (a physician) travelled with the Dutch ambassadors from Nagasaki to Yedo, seeking an audience with Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi. The retinue of the Dutch Ambassadors, in their journey to court, compos'd of the following persons. 1,…
Regni chinensis descriptio [front cover].
In 1611, the Flemish Jesuit missionary Nicolas Trigault reached Peking (Beijing), one year after the death of Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), the founder of the Jesuit mission in China. On his return to Rome, Trigault translated Ricci's memoirs into Latin…
Life in the Chinese Royal Household [01].
A rare 1880s illustration on pith-paper of a scene in the Chinese Royal household.
The Silk Cord Makers.
"The figures represented ... are engaged in manufacturing silk-twist by a very different mode to that adopted by Europeans. Their machinery is not horizontal, but vertical. The threads are extended round a truncated cone. The females who twist…
Momotaro.
Chirimen books are thought to have been invented in August 1885, when a Japanese fairy tale series was published by Hasegawa Takejiro (1853-1936). The books were illustrated by Sensei Eitaku. Thirty-one popular Japanese folktales were translated…
Illustration from The Circle of Chalk.
"Mrs Chang: My lord, the matter is settled. since I have accepted your gifts, my daughter is yours. You may take her away at once. And you my child, you know that it is not I who send you forth from the shelter of my arms. For now you have been…
Settling debts at a merchants house.
A typical scene at a merchant's house during the year-end when all outstanding bills must be settled. One clerk works the abacus, another weighs the silver and a third makes entries in the ledger. Three tradesmen have arrived to present their final…
Textile patterns.
This book contains 64 colourful printed textile patterns produced by the Japanese artist Keika Hasegawa, who flourished c. 1893-1905. The pages are double folded in the Japanese style. Kyoka zuan is one of the important collections of textile…
View in the Eastern side of the Imperial Park at Gehol.
"The Emperor having been informed that, in the course of our travels in China we had shown a strong desire of seeing every thing curious and interesting, was pleased to give directions to the first minister to shew us his park or garden at Gehol. It…
Tokohou : [the story of Prince Tokugawa the fifteenth].
In 1867, the last shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, resigned and the Emperor, Mutsuhito, regained the position of actual head of government. Mutsuhito took the name Meiji ('enlightened government') to designate his reign and this became his imperial…
Japan, an attempt at interpretation [front cover].
Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) is almost as Japanese as haiku. Both are an art form, an institution in Japan. Haiku is indigenous to the nation; Hearn became a Japanese citizen and married a Japanese [Setsu Koizumi], taking the name Yakumo Koizumi. His…
Glimpses of unfamiliar Japan [front cover].
Patrick Lafcadio Hearn reinvented himself. He was known as Patrick in his native Ireland, Lafcadio in America, and Yakumo Koizumi in Japan. He wrote 11 substantial books about his adopted country. On arrival he was given useful advice: 'Do not fail…
Kotto : being Japanese curios, with sundry cobwebs [front cover].
This first edition contains a selection of Japanese legends and stories, including nine tales from old Japanese books to illustrate some strange beliefs. Hearn adds: 'They are only curios.'
The Tea Industry in China [01].
This painting is one of a set of colorful paintings depicting the tea industry in China.
Cormorants Fishing
"The Chinese fishermen take out with them in the morning ten or twelve of these birds, still fasting, either in light boats, or on bamboo rafts. They make them dive one or two at a time: the cormorant seldom comes up without having taken a fish, and…
Signing of the Treaty of Teintsin.
Lawless proceedings in the Canton river, the city of Peking, joss-houses, the Roman Catholic mission, military promenades at Shanghai, the Yangtze, Chinese prostitutes, first views of Deshima and Nagasaki (Japan), the persecution of Christians,…
A view of Fusy-yama : from a Japanese drawing.
"Towering over all in the western distance, but too often concealed by clouds, the majestic Fusi-yama reared its conical summit" (Oliphant, 1859, v. II, p. 97).
Indiae orientalis ... .
Abraham Ortelius (1527-98), rightly called the 'Father of Modern Cartography', developed the idea of assembling a compendium of maps to form an atlas. The first edition of his "Theatrum Orbis Terrarum" was published in 1570 and it was a great…
Raree-Show at Lin-Sin-Chow.
"The spectators and auditors at the raree-show in Lin-sin-choo belong to the industrious and humbler classes" (Allom, c.1842, v. I, p. 48).