Arrival of the "Southern Barbarians"
Unknown Artist
c. 1600
Medium
Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink, color, and gold on paper
Dimensions
146.7 × 337.2 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
Japanese Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
Accession Number
1960.193
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
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.