Artwork Page for Arrival of the "Southern Barbarians"

Details / Information for Arrival of the "Southern Barbarians"

Arrival of the "Southern Barbarians"

南蛮図屏風

c. 1600

Japan, Momoyama period

(1573–1615)
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Medium
Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink, color, and gold on paper
Measurements
Overall: 146.7 x 337.2 cm (57 3/4 x 132 3/4 in.)
Credit Line
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1960.193
Public Domain
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Location
235A Japanese
Print
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Did You Know?

Europeans were called "Southern Barbarians" because their ships arrived in Japan from the south.

Description

These screens show European merchants arriving in Japan. Almost certainly the persons represented are Portuguese, since they are accompanied by Roman Catholic priests. Early in the 1600s the Portuguese were forced out of Japan, chiefly because of internal difficulties caused by their missionaries. Later, between 1641 and 1853, the Dutch were the only Europeans permitted to trade with Japan but their presence was restricted to a port town in far western Japan, near present-day Nagasaki.
Two six-panel folding screens depict crowds of people with dark to light skin tones walking among squared, single-story buildings and in boats riding dark blue waves meeting gold land. On the top screen, a building complex wraps around with the most people walking in front of it, wearing robes or baggy trousers. On the lower screen, water zigzags, intercepting the land, smaller boats gathering around a four-masted ship and people gathering on a rectangular deck at the water's edge.

Arrival of the "Southern Barbarians"

c. 1600

Japan, Momoyama period (1573–1615)

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