Ernest Satow’s Japanese Book Collection at Cambridge University Library: Sharaku and the Origins of the Zōho Ukiyoe Ruikō Manuscript

Noboru Koyama has written many books exploring some of the byways of Anglo-Japanese relations.In this book he turns his attention to Cambridge University Library, where he worked tirelessly for many years as the Japanese Librarian. Towards the end of the book he briefly outlines the growth of the Japanese collection in the twentieth century, but his focus is rather on Ernest Mason Satow (1843-1929), whose name is much better known in Japan than in Britain.Koyama’s real focus is not on the collection as a whole but rather on a small number of manuscripts dating from the end of the Edo period (1600-1868) which were acquired in Japan by Satow and which ended up in Cambridge University Library in 1911. Koyama is right to highlight the continuing importance of manuscripts in Japanese book culture. Manuscripts continued to be produced for a variety of reasons, including the avoidance of censorship, a preference for handwritten calligraphy on fine paper, and a desire to keep some forms of knowledge private.Satow was an avid book-collector and amongst his acquisitions were a number of manuscripts on Japanese art. He also bought ukiyoe from Hayashi Tadamasa (1853-1906), the famous art dealer who was based in Paris. These purchases were at least partly connected with an unfulfilled plan Satow had for a book on Japanese art to be written jointly by him and by William Anderson (1842-1900), who went out to Japan in 1873 as professor of anatomy and surgery at the new Imperial Naval Medical College and formed an important collection of Japanese art. Most of Anderson’s collection ended up in the British Museum, and Satow, too, sold his collection of ukiyoe to the Museum, including twenty-five prints by Sharaku and twenty-four by Utamaro.Sharaku is the most enigmatic of ukiyoe artists. He was active only for a short period, 1794-95, and his identity remains unknown. The most important source on Sharaku is a study of ukiyoe artists compiled by the antiquarian Saitō Gesshin (1804-1878), which bears the title Zōho ukiyoe ruikō and which only survives in the form of numerous manuscript copies. According to Zōho ukiyoe ruikō, Sharaku’s real name was Saitō Jūrōbei and he was a Noh actor in the service of the Awa domain in what is now Tokushima Prefecture in Shikoku. It has not yet proved possible to confirm this and there are many alternative theories about Sharaku’s true identity.The copy of Zōho ukiyoe ruikō written in 1844 in Saitō Gesshin’s own hand is one of the books which Satow acquired in Japan and its importance lies in the fact that it differs from other manuscripts, which are all secondary copies. In this book Koyama explores in meticulous detail the origins of Zōho ukiyoe ruikō, which was partly based on biographies of ukiyoe artists by popular writers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries such as Ōta Nanpo, Santō Kyōden and Shikitei Sanba. He makes good use of Saitō Gesshin’s diary, which has now been published, and notes that Satow acquired at least twelve more items from Gesshin’s collection, which are all now in Cambridge University Library. He also traces the presence of Zōho ukiyoe ruikō in the writings of Satow’s librarian, Shiraishi Mamichi (1848-1880), and in the many extant catalogues of Satow’s collection now held either in Cambridge University Library or Yokohama Archives of History.In translating this book into English, Ian Ruxton has applied his own extensive knowledge of Satow’s life, diaries and letters. This translation will inevitably be of great value to collectors and scholars of ukiyoe, who will be glad to have access to the results of Koyama’s indefatigable researches in English. At the same time, it is an important addition to our knowledge of Satow as a Japanologist.(Abridged from the Introduction) Read more