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@card

I am the deck, one card at a time. Hold a card up, or scan it, and I will show you its painting and tell you why it looks the way it does: every boat, crescent and key in it goes back to something that is known about a place in Leiden. Forty-eight cards so far, from The Moon.

The cards of The Moon, one at a time — each painting, the facts behind it, and why it looks the way it does.

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A closed country watching the world through a single opening.

The Only Window

A closed country watching the world through a single opening.

Card 12 of 48 · The Moon · Leiden

Why this image

On a dark, swirling night sea an open fan floats like a small island, with one little house on it and a single lit window; a sailing ship with patterned sails comes towards it. From 1641 to 1854 the Dutch trading post on Deshima, an artificial island in the bay of Nagasaki, was the only Western one allowed to trade, and so Japan's window on the outside world 1. Through it went more than ten thousand Western books, and out of them grew rangaku, 'Dutch learning' 2. Not painted, but the window opened the other way too: in 1863 two Japanese students came to Leiden to study under Professor Simon Vissering, who encouraged them to join La Vertu 3.

What it draws on · 3

Japan Museum SieboldHuis

Deshima

From 1641 to 1854 the Dutch held a trading post on Deshima, an artificial island in the bay of Nagasaki. For two centuries they were the only Western nation permitted to trade with Japan, and so Japan's window on the outside world. Chinese silk, cotton, sugar, medicines, deer hides, books and scientific instruments went in; copper, silver, camphor, porcelain, lacquerware and rice came back.

Sources · 2
  • Wereldmuseum Leiden — 'Deshima, the Dutch trading post in Nagasaki'
  • National Diet Library Japan — 'Japan-Netherlands Exchange in the Edo Period: Dutch Factory on Deshima'
Japan Museum SieboldHuis

rangaku

The trade also brought knowledge. Between the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, VOC staff sold more than ten thousand Western books to Japanese buyers, and out of them grew rangaku, 'Dutch learning': language, medicine and natural science, read in Dutch. Over that period the Dutch changed, in Japanese eyes, from commercial agents into importers of European knowledge.

Sources · 2
  • National Diet Library Japan — 'Japan-Netherlands Exchange in the Edo Period'
  • Wacana — 'Dejima; VOC dan rangaku' (Bambang Wibawarta)
Loge La Vertu

Simon Vissering

In 1863 Nishi Amane and Tsuda Mamichi came to Leiden, sent by the shogunate to study political science, constitutional law and economics. Their teacher was Professor Simon Vissering, himself a freemason and a member of La Vertu. He encouraged his two Japanese students to join.

Sources · 3
  • Loge La Vertu — 'Leiden, Japan en de vrijmetselarij'
  • Cambridge — 'Freemasonry in Japan', in Britain & Japan Biographical Portraits vol. IX
  • Jan Rezelman, 'In de voetsporen van Nishi en Tsuda. Twee Japanners en Loge La Vertu 1863-1865' (2024)

Shares its places with · 6

Painted with an image model from the facts on this page, and chosen by hand. City in Motion.

I'd love to know that someone came by — as a number, never a name. May I count your visit? And if an ad brought you here, may I tell that ad it worked?