Arrival of the "Southern Barbarians" (c. 1600): Art, History and Details

Arrival of the "Southern Barbarians" (c. 1600) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

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.

Object facts

• Title: Arrival of the "Southern Barbarians"
• Date: c. 1600
• Culture: Japan, Momoyama period (1573–1615)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink, color, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 146.7 x 337.2 cm (57 3/4 x 132 3/4 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Folding screen
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1960.193

A detail from the museum

Europeans were called "Southern Barbarians" because their ships arrived in Japan from the south.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Yoshida, Teruji 吉田暎二. Ukiyoe taisei 浮世繪大成. Tokyo 東京: Toho Shoin 東方書院, Showa 昭和 5–6 [1930 –1931].
• Hōun 寳雲, no. 4 (1932): pp. 64–83.
• Buhot, Jean. "Les Paravents Des Portugais: A Propos du Paravent du Musée Guimet." Revue Des Arts Asiatiques 12, no. 2/3 (June-September 1938): 113–124.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.