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Japan: Dutch traders in Nagasaki, as depicted by an unknown Japanese artist, c.1840-50.

Painted on a 6-meter silk and paper ‘makimono’—a Japanese scroll painting—this scene depicting Dutch traders in Dejima, near Nagasaki, indicates the manner in which the strange Europeans were viewed by Japanese during the Edo period. The Dutchmen all have reddish-brown hair, wear extravagant costumes and doff their hats to each other.

Dejima, or Deshima (literally ‘Exit Island’), is a small artificial island built in the bay of Nagasaki in 1634 during the Edo period. Dejima was built to constrain foreign traders as part of ‘sakoku’, a self-imposed isolationist policy. Originally built to house Portuguese traders, it changed to a Chinese and Dutch trading post from 1641 until 1853 during which time the Dutch mostly bartered for Japanese gold, silver and copper with East Indies’ spices, Indian cloth and Chinese silk and porcelain. Dejima Dutch Trading Post has since been designated a Japanese national historic site.