Dutchmen Unloading Cargo at Dejima

In the sixteenth century, Nagasaki, in far southwestern Japan, was transformed from a remote fishing village into a bustling harbor city frequented by Portuguese, Chinese, and Southeast Asian visitors. A century later, the Tokugawa shogunate designated Nagasaki as one of Japan’s only official international ports. This painting portrays a group of Dutchmen carrying cargo into a walled compound at Dejima, a fan-shaped, artificial island in Nagasaki Bay that served as a trading post reserved for use by Dutch traders until the mid-nineteenth century.