Cleveland Museum of Art

Arrival of the "Southern Barbarians"

Date

c. 1600

Medium

Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink, color, and gold on paper

Culture

Japan, Momoyama period (1573–1615)

Department

Japanese Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

These screens show European merchants arriving in Japan. Almost certainly the persons represented are Portuguese, since they are accompanied by Roman Catholic priests. Early in the 1600s the Portuguese were forced out of Japan, chiefly because of internal difficulties caused by their missionaries. Later, between 1641 and 1853, the Dutch were the only Europeans permitted to trade with Japan but their presence was restricted to a port town in far western Japan, near present-day Nagasaki. Europeans were called "Southern Barbarians" because their ships arrived in Japan from the south.

The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.