Title
Ryūkyū Ran Shaseizu (A Drawing of Nuumen Ran from Ryūkyū 琉球蘭写生図)
Creator
Date
c. 1816
Format
Description
Color hanging scroll on washi. Frame size: 152cm x 49.3cm, Drawing size: 78.8cm x 37cm. Sakamaki/Hawley Collection. Udagawa Yōan was a naturalist and linguist. Since early childhood, he had a keen interest in plants and insects. He mastered Dutch and befriended Dutch scientist Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866). In this hanging scroll, he describes in classical Dutch a unique orchid in Ryūkyū (present day Okinawa), which was brought to Edo (ancient capital and current Tokyo, Japan). A careful investigation of two seals on the piece has proven that this piece is extremely rare. The literal translation of Yōan's classical Dutch is as follows:
Orchid from Nuumen [present day Iriomote, a small neighboring island of Okinawa]
This indigenous plant is of the family of ran [orchid], it grows in Nuumen, [which] is one of the regions in Ryūkyū, from there it is brought [to the main island of] Ryūkyū, and then/to our Edo, because the gardens of the daimyō are provided with it, it is very precious and expensive, one seldom sees it at our gardener’s, but I have seen it for the first time in the year Bunka 13 [1816] on Tuesday of/October in Sgama [Sugamo] and it consists of a length of one feet, two inch width and one row of thick leaves, but [they] grow two by two/connected to each other, its color is dark green and very shiny. We have not seen these flowers, but according to the words of the gardener it bears flowers which look like the flowers of the ran. The root is wood-like, the thickness is of about one finger of a young child, And it stays alive a long time.
Written by servant W.d. Jouan [Woedagawa=Udagawa Joan] In Edo
(English literal translation by Ms Isabel Tanaka-van Daalen, Liaison Officer, Arts and Sciences, The Japan-Netherlands Institute in Tokyo)
Orchid from Nuumen [present day Iriomote, a small neighboring island of Okinawa]
This indigenous plant is of the family of ran [orchid], it grows in Nuumen, [which] is one of the regions in Ryūkyū, from there it is brought [to the main island of] Ryūkyū, and then/to our Edo, because the gardens of the daimyō are provided with it, it is very precious and expensive, one seldom sees it at our gardener’s, but I have seen it for the first time in the year Bunka 13 [1816] on Tuesday of/October in Sgama [Sugamo] and it consists of a length of one feet, two inch width and one row of thick leaves, but [they] grow two by two/connected to each other, its color is dark green and very shiny. We have not seen these flowers, but according to the words of the gardener it bears flowers which look like the flowers of the ran. The root is wood-like, the thickness is of about one finger of a young child, And it stays alive a long time.
Written by servant W.d. Jouan [Woedagawa=Udagawa Joan] In Edo
(English literal translation by Ms Isabel Tanaka-van Daalen, Liaison Officer, Arts and Sciences, The Japan-Netherlands Institute in Tokyo)
Is Part Of
Asia - Japan Collection, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Library
Page Location
103