[JAPANESE IN THE PACIFIC and RUSSIA] - Set of 4 Japanese Scrolls relating to the Kankai Ibun [Strange tales of a Circumnavigation].

Russia and the Pacific seen by four Japanese castaways: almost 4 meters of drawings and maps llustrating their impression of the Russian land, people, culture, military, dress, etc., together with depictions of Marquesan and Hawaian people.

The Kankai Ibun, or "Strange Tales of a Circumnavigation", for the first time recorded the experiences of four Japanese who had been rescued by a Russian vessel in 1792 and were taken to St. Petersburg before eventually returning to Japan on the Krusenstern expedition in 1804.

The first scroll opens with two aerial maps of Avacha Bay (Kamchatka) and the entrance to Nagasaki harbour, followed by Russian flags and detailed rendition of Russian military uniforms, the Russian boat Nadezhda entering Nagasaki harbour surrounded by a multitude of Japanese vessels from the Saga and Omura domain, a map of the Ob river basin, a small map of the a scene on Baikal lake, a sketch of a newly built Russian naval vessel and a water-mill. The second scroll shows two scenes of the first launch in Russia of a hot air balloon, two views of the St. Petersburg Kunstkammer and a large planetarium, a view of a greenhouse and a selection of plants and roots, a statue of Peter the Great, a theatre play and a dinner scene, as well as a marvellous depiction of a Marquesan man with full body tattoos and a Marquesan canoe followed by a man and woman from a Hawaian island. Scroll no III opens with church towers and the mechanism for ringing bells, a ferris wheel, a fire engine, uniformed soldiers, musical instruments, a horse-drawn carriage, a windmill, finishing with a large watercolour portrait of Catherine the Great and Tsar Alexander I. The last scroll, uncolored, is wholly comprised of patterns for Russian clothing, jackets, trousers, coats and a hat.

The 'Kankai Ibun' usually circulated in manuscript book format in Japan after 1807, and scroll versions are extremely rare.

Description and provenance: Ink and watercolor scrolls on paper. Approx. 380x23cm, on wooden rollers, silk outer coverings with paper title-slips and ribbon ties. Preserved in a contemporary two-part leather case with two embossed kamon (family crest, Yoshimi?) on the top, the lower part of case re-inforced with wood, Japanese collector's stamp (Watanabe Library) pasted in.