Collection

Oranda Tensetsu (Dutch explanation of heaven), and Copperplate Prints.

On exhibit

1796

No. 69428

Shiba Kokan, a Western painter and thinker in the late Edo period, is known to have been the first to use copperplate prints (etching) in Japan. In this item, printed books were printed with woodcuts but on the other hand celestial spheres and the solar and lunar observation charts were printed with copperplates and were colored by hand. Through his interactions with scholars of Dutch studies, Otsuki Gentaku and Hiraga Gennai and others, Shiba Kokan became interested in Western natural science, and through this book, he introduced Copernican theory advocated by Copernicus and Tycho Brahe's system.