Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 21. (Budapest, 2002)

Monika BINCSIK: The Trade in Japanese Art during the Meiji Period with Special Reference to Lacquer, as Mirrored in the Collections at the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts, Budapest

ships", Japan, too, was obliged to conclude a treaty with the United States. Treaties with the other Great Powers followed. To begin with, Nagasaki, Hakodate and Shimoda - ports far from Edo - were opened.

11 Then, in 1859, Kanagawa was opened, thanks to the efforts of Townsend Harris (1804-1878), the first consul to be sent from America. Later on the ports of Kobe and Niigata were opened, too. It was "unequal treaties" imposed on Japan by force that opened the country's ports to foreigners, and these treaties also ensured numerous privileges for foreigners settling in them. Traders with ships already laden awaited the official opening of ports in the hope of fat profits. Yokohama was nothing but a tiny fishing village opposite Kanagawa (111. 3) when, on account of its suitable location and deep water, its harbour was opened to commercial shipping on 1 July 1859. Since it was further away from the Tökaidö (the highway linking Kyoto with Edo), it was in Yokohama that the Japanese attempted to create the conditions necessary for the settlement of foreigners, although Kanagawa was the location designated in the original treaties.

12 When a regular mail-steamer service began between San Francisco and Hong Kong in 1867, Yokohama became one of the ports of call for those on round-the-world trips. Travellers approaching Japan from a westerly direction would arrive in the country at Yokohama. They would then visit the permitted sights in the Yokohama area, in Nikko and in Tokyo before proceeding across the Inland Sea on the Kyoto - Kobe - Seto route. They would then leave the country from Nagasaki. Those arriving from the east would land at Nagasaki and proceed via the same route to Yokohama, from where they would leave Japan.

13 In Ernest Satow's A Handbook for Travellers in Central and Northern Japan,

14 published in 1881, there are, besides useful travel tips - for example, that Japanese-made straw sandals (waraji) adjusted to the right size were best worn with socks (tabi) made from dark blue linen for long journeys and that visitors were well advised to take certain foodstuffs with them -, detailed descriptions of the usual tourist excursions into the Japanese hinterland (naichi, the areas outside the free ports).

15 In the environs of Yokohama sights were to be found along the following routes: to Tomioka, Yokosuka and Kamakura by way of Uraga and Misaki, to Kanazawa and Enoshima, and along the Tökaidö from Kanagawa in the direction of Tokyo. Travellers in the age of steamships and steam locomotives must have acquired impressions similar to the following ones, obtained by a passenger on board a ship bound for Japan: 6 December 1881 Twenty-one days in the solitudes of the sea seem long, when we can cross the Atlantic in 10 days and the New World in a week. For the whole 5000 miles we saw absolutely nothing, neither sail nor line of smoke! [...] It will be a joy to see the solid earth again, and the green shores of Japan are said to be among the most beautiful of any that skirt the seas.

16 13 December 1881 As day light [sic] increased and the 'Land of the Rising Sun' revealed itself, we could see that its shores were still green, and that no wintery garb of snow had yet enveloped the hills crested with timber which line the bay. The pearly grey clouds hung low so that no distant Mountainous outline was visible, not even glorious 'Fusi-yama' [sic], a fact we greatly regretted, as no view of the peerless cone is so impressive as that seen from an incoming Steamer.

17 It is extremely difficult to say precisely how many people visited Japan as tourists at this time. One indicator is the number given a "Travel permit for the Japanese interior", issued in accordance with the Gaikokujin naichi ryokö injun jörei that came into force in 1874. The records tell us that 1136 such permits were issued in 1875,1118 in 1881, 1500 in 1883, and 1736 in 1886. However, conditions had to be met for these permits to be issued, with the result that no important conclusions can be drawn from this data.

18 On the other hand, we can learn a great deal from the records of the