Paper short abstract:

Utamaro Kitagawa (1753-1806) Book of Insects of 1788 contains fifteen beautifully engraved plants, insects and reptiles, and poems written by Edo poets. The book was given by the Rangakusha Udagawa Youan as a gift to the German doctor of the Dutch delegation Philipp Franz von Siebold in 1824.

Paper long abstract:

Utamaro Kitagawa (1753-1806) is famous for his wood block engraving of women. Recently in a visit to Leiden, Holland, I was introduced to Utamaro's Book of Insects, 画本虫撰 Ehon mushi erabi. The book contains fifteen beautifully engraved plants, each on two facing pages; two insects or reptiles accurately engraved near those plants and two poems. Those were written by a group of Japanese poets who gathered near the Sumida River in Edo, todays Tokyo. They wrote poems that describe the insects in a humoristic way yet also with the connotation of love songs. Each page carries two poems. "Those comic poems were accepted not only as an entertainment but also as a way to express feelings in the rigid society like the one that existed in Japan in the 18th century". Those Japanese poems were written in cursive fonts and rewritten using 20th century fonts are studied, including their French Livre des Insectes and English Songs of the Garden translations, both published in 1984. Hebrew translation is currently underway.

The original book in two volumes in Leiden includes a dedication written in Dutch by the Japanese Dutch Studies scholar Udagawa Youan (1798-1846) to Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866), the German physician, doctor of the Dutch trade delegation in Deshima Island. Why did Udagawa Youan chose Utamaro's 1788 book as a gift to Von Siebold in 1824? It might be that Youan's study and drawing of plants, including in his [Album of Plant Drawings by Youan, The Yoan Shokubutsu Shazei Zufu] have attracted him to Utamaro's plants drawings. Von Siebold's inscriptions on some of Youan's drawings are also studied: On what circumstances, where and when were it included in Youan's drawings. The artistic works, poetry, and the connection between those three scholars will be presented.

Acknowledgement: Thanks to Dr. Daan Kok, curator of Japan and Korea at the Museum of Ethnology in Leiden for fruitful discussion