Japanese etching prints trace back to the early modern period with the invention of copperplate engraving by Catholic acolytes. This artwork is the first Japanese aquatint etching, which was produced by Shiba Kōkan (司馬江漢, 1747-1818), a representative western-style painter of in the late Edo period. The right and left sides are reversed, as the piece is a megane-e (眼鏡繪, a refracted print viewed through a device with a lens and a mirror). The upper part bears the phrase “mimegurinokei (三圍景, the scenery of Mimeguri)” written in reverse, and the signature seal bears the inscription, “made by Shiba Kōkan in Shibakado” “September in the Gyemyo year of Denmei (天明) era” on the outer edge, although it is not clearly visible. The painting depicts a view of Mimeguri Shrine (三圍神社, “Three Cubicles Shrine”), in Mukojima, Tokyo, as seen from the mouth of the Sumidagawa River (隅田川). As perspective painting had not been developed at that time, the river is depicted with a crescent-shaped line, with Mt. Tsukuba (筑波山) visible from the distance. However, Shiba Kōkan painted the same scene from a different perspective in 1787. These paintings (made in 1783) are housed by only a few museums. Despite living through Japan’s isolationist period, Kōkan took an interest in Western natural science and wrote numerous books on astronomy and geology, in addition to producing a copperplate map of the world.(en)
