Height: 28.90 centimetres

Length: 1525 centimetres

In July 1853, US Commodore Matthew Perry steamed into Edo Bay with four warships to deliver a letter from President Fillmore requesting the establishment of trade relations with Tokugawa Japan. This was calculated to end more than two centuries, since the late 1630s, of Japan's self-imposed restrictions on contact with the West. In March 1854, Perry returned with a larger fleet of nine ships and on 31 March the Treaty of Kanagawa was signed between the US mission and the Shogunal representatives, which guaranteed good treatment for castaways and the opening of two ports, Shimoda and Hakodate, for provisions and refuge. This laid the groundwork for the further treaties with the US, Britain, France, Holland and Russia, leading to the opening of the treaty ports of Kanagawa (Yokohama), Nagasaki and Hakodate to foreign trade from 1859. Japan’s policy of restricted international commerce was now officially ended and, under a dynamic new regime following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the country embarked on a course of rapid modernisation, .

Pulitzer-prize winning US historian John Dower has described the Perry missions of 1853 and 1854 as ‘a moment when the world stood on the cusp of phenomenal change’ (see reference below). The present handscroll appears to be one of the most complete and finely executed pictorial records from the Japanese side of Perry’s second, more substantial visit of 1854. Though unsigned, the compositions relate closely to sketches known to have been made from life at the time by Hibata Ōsuke( 樋畑翁輔, 1813-1870; a pupil of Utagawa Kuniyoshi), who, together with Takagawa Bunsen 高川文筌(1818 - ?; a pupil of Tani Bunchō) was one of two artist-retainers of the Sanada 真田 lord, who were permitted to witness these politically extremely sensitive negotiations and record them. This was done with the knowledge and approval of Hayashi Fukusai (林復斎, 1800-1859), the chief negotiator for the Shogunate and co-signatory to the treaty. The painters obtained positions as personal assistants to the Uraga magistrate, Izaka Masayoshi伊沢政義 (? – 1864), another of the five main Japanese negotiators.

The visits of Perry generated an explosion of popular works: colour woodblock prints, unsigned black and white ‘rumour prints’ (kawaraban), and a number of painted handscrolls that are generally quite crude and exaggerate wildly the facial features and appearance of the foreign visitors (for example, the ‘Black Ships’ handscroll in the Honolulu Academy of Arts). The present scroll is one of only a handful of much higher quality works that relate to Hibata and Takagawa’s sketches. (Hibata’s son wrote in 1930, ‘All pictures in circulation throughout the country [Japan] are, with rare exceptions, derived from the present work’ – and yet very few have come to light in the subsequent eighty or so years.)

Although unsigned and lacking the inscriptions found on other versions, this scroll does have a fine calligraphic preface by the prominent poet in Chinese, Ōnuma Chinzan (1818-1891). This describes the events and significance of Perry’s second visit, stressing the dignity and effectiveness of the Japanese government’s response. Chinzan’s preface is dated sixth month, 1858. The 19th day of the sixth month was precisely the day when the much-enhanced ‘US-Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce’ was signed between US Consul Townsend Harris and shogunal authorities, inaugurating foreign trade. It may be that the current painting was produced at this time to review the momentous visit of Perry in 1854 that had led to this important commercial treaty of 1858.

The accompanying handwritten document gives a detailed list of the contents of the scroll which is accurate and consistent with information given elsewhere. Three possibilities suggest themselves for why the scroll itself lacks any text: 1) It was politically sensitive to include this; 2) the events were already well known to the recipient of the scroll; 3) the scroll is unfinished (perhaps unlikely, given the high level of technical finesse of the paintings).

Assembling the evidence, it is proposed that this is a very high quality and ‘tidied up’ version of a subject done a number of times (with variation). It is clearly based on the sketches made by Hibata Ōsuke from life and was perhaps even painted by him. It was done sometime between 1854 and late summer 1858 (the date of the preface) on the orders of some high-ranking personage who knew the events well.

In addition to its extraordinary documentary value in depicting in detail momentous historical events, the scroll is of high artistic quality and fascinating for the view it gives of the cultural encounter from the Japanese side. In comparison to the serious, official US account of Perry’s mission, published by Congress in 1856, there is considerable interest in the Japanese painting in the human and occasionally comic aspects of this great encounter between cultures.