Ryūkyū kaigo 琉球解語 [The Ryukyu Procession & Culture Revealed]
Eight-page woodcut of a procession and one double-page & four full-page woodcut illus. .5, 18, .5 folding leaves. Oblong 8vo, orig. semi-stiff wrappers, most of title-slip perished, new stitching. Edo: Wakasaya Yoichi 若狭屋與市, 1850.
First edition, illustrated by Utagawa Hiroshige towards the end of his celebrated career. This is an illustrated account of the 1850 final embassy of the Ryukyu kingdom to Edo, an obligatory procession made in the name of the eight-year old new King of Ryukyu, Sho Tai (1843-1901, r. 1848-79). The embassy, which included Ryukyuan princes representing the king and high-ranking officials, Confucian literati, interpreters, and attendants, together with musicians and dancers, first arrived at Kagoshima in the Satsuma fiefdom and with the fiefdom’s delegation, travelled to Osaka by the Inland Sea and then proceeded to Edo. All included, the mission took about a year.
The Ryukyu procession caused a sensation, with its foreign costumes, music, and dance. Hiroshige used the event to portray the procession in a wonderful eight-page woodcut in the present book, helping to fix the iconography of these embassies in late-Edo visual culture.
The eight-page continuous woodcut of the Ryukyuan procession in Edo is most revealing: the first and most important dignitaries in the procession are high officials from the Satsuma fiefdom, making clear the subordinate vassal relationship the kingdom had with the Satsuma fiefdom and the central government in Edo. In the long woodcut, many of the participants and procession ornaments are named. The leading prince of the Ryukyu delegation is carried in an ornate palanquin.
The subsequent woodcuts depict the mission’s costumes of various ranks, a Ryukyuan robe, dances, a market in Ryukyu showing women as the only vendors, elaborate tack for a horse from Ryukyu, etc. The text discusses the costumes, music, and dance of the visitors.
Very good copy, with some minor “thumbing” in lower outer corners.
First edition, illustrated by Utagawa Hiroshige towards the end of his celebrated career. This is an illustrated account of the 1850 final embassy of the Ryukyu kingdom to Edo, an obligatory procession made in the name of the eight-year old new King of Ryukyu, Sho Tai (1843-1901, r. 1848-79). The embassy, which included Ryukyuan princes representing the king and high-ranking officials, Confucian literati, interpreters, and attendants, together with musicians and dancers, first arrived at Kagoshima in the Satsuma fiefdom and with the fiefdom’s delegation, travelled to Osaka by the Inland Sea and then proceeded to Edo. All included, the mission took about a year.
The Ryukyu procession caused a sensation, with its foreign costumes, music, and dance. Hiroshige used the event to portray the procession in a wonderful eight-page woodcut in the present book, helping to fix the iconography of these embassies in late-Edo visual culture.
The eight-page continuous woodcut of the Ryukyuan procession in Edo is most revealing: the first and most important dignitaries in the procession are high officials from the Satsuma fiefdom, making clear the subordinate vassal relationship the kingdom had with the Satsuma fiefdom and the central government in Edo. In the long woodcut, many of the participants and procession ornaments are named. The leading prince of the Ryukyu delegation is carried in an ornate palanquin.
The subsequent woodcuts depict the mission’s costumes of various ranks, a Ryukyuan robe, dances, a market in Ryukyu showing women as the only vendors, elaborate tack for a horse from Ryukyu, etc. The text discusses the costumes, music, and dance of the visitors.
Very good copy, with some minor “thumbing” in lower outer corners.
Details
Title
Ryūkyū kaigo 琉球解語 [The Ryukyu Procession & Culture Revealed]
Author
TOMIOKA, Shukō 冨岡手暠
Condition
Unknown