The Cock Blomhoff family, painted on silk by Ishizaki Yushi in 1817
Even in a largely democratic society, art is sometimes for the privileged only. Since 9 December 2002 the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum is the first museum in the world to have an annex at an airport, while Schiphol is the first airport with a museum in its terminal. The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam Schiphol is located on Holland Boulevard, in the area behind the passport control between the E and F Pier. It’s open every day from 7:00 until 20:00 and admission is free. It houses a permanent exhibition of ten works by Dutch masters of the Golden Age from the Rijksmuseum’s collection and it has a temporary exhibition that changes a number of times a year. But it’s for a select audience, as this museum Rijksmuseum is only accessible to passengers.
Now in it’s seventh year, the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam Schiphol presents Holland and Japan, 400 Years of Trade (11 February-25 May 2009). This exhibition shows four centuries of cultural contacts between the two countries through objects from the Rijksmuseum and other collections. In 1609, the Dutch sent two ships to Japan and received permission from Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu to establish a factory (trading post) at Hirado. In 1641, the Dutch moved this trading post to Deshima and for 218 years thereafter they joined China in monopolizing trade with Japan.
Scale model of Deshima (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
Holland and Japan highlights the unique position of the Dutch on the isolated island of Deshima and the artistic and cultural interchanges that resulted from the trade relations. Well over 20 works will be on display, including lacquerware, porcelain, a room divider, and paintings from the collection of the Rijksmuseum. Highlight is the 6-meter-plus-long woodblock print, featuring scenes from everyday life on Deshima. There’s also a very special treat, as the Rijksmuseum recently purchased the earliest portrait of a Dutch family in Japan, This picture of the Cock Blomhoff family, painted on silk by Ishizaki Yushi in 1817, is also on show at Schiphol.
All in all, the exhibition displays artistic beauty as a by-product of an almost exclusively mercantile interaction, as the first Dutchmen who came to Japan were primarily merchants interested in making a profit and neither willing nor able to study Japanese culture (see The Low Countries). And the Japanese themselves mostly kept away from these ‘red-headed barbarians’, whom they described as having ‘white skins, high noses and white pupils in their eyes’.
Subscribe