Edo & Meiji Japan: Cartography & Early Photography | Rubini Antique Maps and Prints

Cataloged Works in this Collection

Johnson's Japan Nippon, Kiusiu, Sikok, Yesso and the Japanese Kuriles
Cartographer / Artist: A.J. Johnson
Date: c. 1866
Medium: Engraving with hand coloring
Dimensions: 17.0 × 14.3 in
Location: Japan
This detailed 1866 antique map by A.J. Johnson depicts the Japanese archipelago during the transition from the Edo period to the Meiji era. The map covers the main islands of Honshu (Nippon), Kyushu (Kiusiu), Shikoku (Sikok), and Hokkaido (Yesso), clearly defining historical provinces, topography, major towns, coastal features, and surrounding bodies of water. Inset maps highlight 'Yesso and the Japanese Kuriles' in the upper left corner and the strategic harbor of 'Bay of Nagasaki' in the lower right corner. A key provides explanations of Japanese geographical terms such as jama (mountain), saki (cape), and sima (island). Compiled in part from the groundbreaking cartographic work of Philipp Franz von Siebold and augmented by hydrographic surveys conducted during Commodore Matthew C. Perry's U.S. Japan Expedition, the map offers an important record of Western geographical knowledge of Japan in the mid-19th century. The work is enclosed within Johnson's distinctive decorative geometric fretwork border featuring stylized corner starburst motifs.
Johnson's Japan: Nippon, Kiusiu, Sikok, Yesso and the Japanese Kuriles
Cartographer / Artist: A. J. Johnson and Benjamin P. Ward
Date: c. 1864
Medium: Hand-colored steel engraving
Dimensions: 16.6 × 13.6 in
Location: Japan
This mid-19th-century map of Japan by A. J. Johnson and Benjamin P. Ward provides a comprehensive overview of the Japanese archipelago during the late Tokugawa shogunate (Bakumatsu period), created shortly after the opening of Japan to Western trade following Commodore Perry's naval expedition. The primary map illustrates the main islands of Honshu ('Nippon'), Kyushu ('Kiusiu'), and Shikoku ('Sikok'), with historical provinces highlighted in pastel hand coloring. Mountain ranges, coastal bathymetry, towns, and sea routes are intricately depicted using geographical compilations by Philipp Franz von Siebold alongside survey data from the U.S. Japan Expedition. Two detailed insets complement the main map: the upper-left inset features Hokkaido ('Yesso'), Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands, while the lower-right inset provides a detailed harbor chart of the Bay of Nagasaki, one of Japan's key historical treaty ports open to foreign trade. The sheet is enclosed within Johnson's signature decorative fretwork border.
View of the Yokohama Grand Hotel along the Bund, Japan
Cartographer / Artist: Unknown Japanese studio
Date: c. 1890
Medium: Hand-tinted albumen print on original card mount
Dimensions: 13.3 × 11.3 in
Location: Yokohama, Japan
This exquisite hand-tinted albumen photograph captures the Yokohama Grand Hotel along the famous Bund waterfront in Yokohama during the late Meiji period. The imposing Western-style brick building is lavishly decorated with international flags, including the American stars and stripes and the Japanese Hinomaru, highlighting its prestige as a premier establishment serving foreign diplomats, merchants, and globetrotters visiting Japan after the opening of its treaty ports. The visual composition emphasizes the rapid modernization of Meiji Japan, depicting telegraph and electric poles stretching along the unpaved coastal road, alongside a parked carriage and decorative stone bollards lining the harbor seawall. The subtle, delicate hand-coloring brings out the architectural details, soft blue sky, and vibrant textile ensigns, offering a vivid historical record of nineteenth-century foreign settlement life in Yokohama.
A Fishery: Drying Nets in a Meiji Period Japanese Village
Cartographer / Artist: Kusakabe Kimbei (attributed)
Date: c. 1885
Medium: Hand-colored albumen print mounted on card stock
Dimensions: 13.2 × 10.4 in
Location: Japan
This exquisite hand-tinted albumen print offers a vivid window into late 19th-century Japanese coastal life during the Meiji era (1868–1912). In the foreground, extensive dark fishing nets are draped over wooden posts and spread across the beach to dry, forming sweeping curves that dominate the composition. Local villagers, including fishermen in traditional garments and young children, stand amidst the nets, giving scale and human presence to the scene. In the background, a row of traditional thatched-roof village dwellings lines the shore against a tree-covered hillside. Produced primarily for foreign visitors and collectors by studios of the famed Yokohama School, photographs of this genre combined early photographic technology with centuries-old Japanese traditions of artistic hand-coloring. Subtle hand-applied pigments in red, green, and yellow highlight details in the villagers' clothing and equipment, emphasizing the texture of daily rural labor.
Bamboo Avenue with Jinrikisha, Japan
Cartographer / Artist: Unknown Photographer (Japanese Studio)
Date: c. 1890
Medium: Hand-colored albumen print on mount
Dimensions: 13.1 × 15.2 in
Location: Japan
This striking Meiji-era photograph depicts a narrow dirt pathway cutting through a dense, towering bamboo grove in Japan, likely near Kyoto or Kamakura. Sunlight filters through the overarching canopy of bamboo stalks, creating a serene, natural archway above two figures traversing the trail. In the foreground, a rickshaw (jinrikisha) puller pauses on the track, accompanied by a companion walking further ahead along the central axis of the composition. Photographs of iconic natural vistas such as bamboo forests were extremely popular among foreign travelers during Japan's late nineteenth-century opening to Western tourism. Hand-applied delicate watercolors bring life to the lush green foliage, rustic bamboo fences, and traditional garments worn by the figures. Produced by studios specializing in Yokohama-style souvenir photography, such images served as evocative representations of traditional Japanese landscapes and customs for an international audience.
Okitama-ken Kankatsu Zenzu (Complete Map of the Jurisdiction of Okitama Prefecture)
Cartographer / Artist: Unknown (Japanese Early Meiji Cartographer)
Date: c. 1874
Medium: Woodblock print on paper
Dimensions: 9.6 × 5.7 in
Location: Okitama District, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan
This detailed Meiji-era administrative map depicts Okitama Prefecture (置賜県), a short-lived prefectural division established in northern Japan following the abolition of the han system in 1871, which was later merged into Yamagata Prefecture in August 1876. The title block displayed prominently on the left reads 'Okitama-ken Kankatsu Zenzu' (置賜縣管轄全圖). The map outlines regional geography, mountainous terrain rendered in classic Japanese black-ink hachure and hill-shading styles, river systems, and administrative boundaries connecting to neighboring Echigo Province (Niigata Prefecture) and Murayama District (Yamagata Prefecture). The composition highlights the transition period of Japanese cartography during the early Meiji period, blending traditional Edo-period topographical aesthetic techniques with modernized administrative district labels and road distance measurements. Fine kanji annotations clearly mark village names, mountain passes, and jurisdictional borders, providing an essential record of regional feudal-to-modern territorial reorganization.
Japanese Map of Asiatic Turkey (亞細亞土耳其全圖)
Cartographer / Artist: Unknown Japanese Cartographer
Date: c. 1878
Medium: Woodblock print on paper
Dimensions: 7.4 × 7.8 in
Location: Ottoman Empire / Middle East
This late 19th-century Meiji-era Japanese map depicts Asiatic Turkey, representing the Asian territories of the Ottoman Empire including Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, and parts of the Arabian Peninsula. Created during a period of rapid Japanese geopolitical awareness and educational reform, the chart translates Western cartographic sources into a native Japanese format featuring a prominent vertical title cartouche and detailed regional borders. Visual features include distinctive caterpillar-style hachuring to represent major mountain ranges, fine linework for river systems, and coastal outline shading. Geographical labels are printed in traditional Chinese characters (Kanji) accompanied by Japanese Katakana phonetic transcriptions for foreign place names such as Armenia, Syria, and the Mediterranean Sea, highlighting the synthesis of traditional East Asian printing techniques with modern European geographic knowledge.
Historical Woodblock Map of Southern China and the Yangtze River Basin
Cartographer / Artist: Unknown Chinese or Japanese Cartographer
Date: c. 1820
Medium: Woodblock print with blue ink wash on paper
Dimensions: 8.5 × 6.1 in
Location: Southern China
This traditional woodblock-printed historical map depicts the geography of southern China, showcasing the intricate network of rivers flowing toward the sea, including the Yangtze and Pearl River systems. Major historical territories, mountain ranges, and administrative settlements—such as Guangzhou (廣州), Guilin (桂林), Changsha (長沙), Hengshan (衡山), and Jiaozhi (交趾)—are rendered in classical East Asian calligraphic script. Directional markers at the margins orient the viewer, with South positioned at the bottom and East to the right side. Cartographically, the print exemplifies traditional East Asian spatial representation, where topological relationships, mountain ridges, and hydrography take precedence over strict mathematical projection. The delicate application of light blue wash gives depth to the branching waterways and coastal inlets, while mountain ranges are subtly outlined along the river valleys.
Japanese Junk
Cartographer / Artist: Wilhelm Heine (artist); Sarony & Co. (lithographer)
Date: c. 1856
Medium: Tinted lithograph
Dimensions: 11.5 × 8.8 in
Location: Japan
This mid-19th-century lithograph depicts a traditional Japanese coastal vessel, commonly referred to as a junk or bezaisen, navigating choppy waters along the Japanese coastline with a distant view of Mount Fuji visible on the horizon. Drawn by Wilhelm Heine, the official artist accompanying Commodore Matthew C. Perry's historic naval expedition to Japan between 1853 and 1854, this work offers a detailed contemporary visual document of Japanese nautical architecture prior to rapid Westernization. The print was lithographed and published in New York by Sarony & Co. for inclusion in Perry's official U.S. Congressional expedition report. The composition emphasizes the vessel's single large square sail billowing in the wind, its intricate wooden hull construction, open deck structure, and a heraldic crest flag flying from the stern gallery. Figures of Japanese sailors are visible on board, managing sails and navigating the ship against a dramatic sky filled with sunlit clouds.
Com. Perry Paying His Farewell Visit to the Imperial Commissioners at Simoda
Cartographer / Artist: Wilhelm Heine (artist); Sarony & Co. (lithographer)
Date: 1856
Medium: Tinted lithograph
Dimensions: 11.5 × 8.8 in
Location: Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan
This historic 1856 lithograph depicts Commodore Matthew C. Perry's official farewell visit to the Japanese Imperial Commissioners at Shimoda following the negotiation of the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. Drawn from nature by official expedition artist Wilhelm Heine and printed by the renowned New York lithography firm Sarony & Co., the print was created to illustrate the official United States government narrative of the Perry Expedition to Japan and the China Seas. The visual composition captures a pivotal moment of cultural exchange. In the foreground, Japanese townspeople gather on the shore alongside traditional coastal boats to watch an American military procession carrying the United States flag. The procession winds along a raised pathway towards a Japanese complex nestled beneath towering pine trees, while Perry's naval ships remain visible anchored in Shimoda harbor in the distance.
Map of the Malay Archipelago (來西亞全圖 - Raisia Zentu)
Cartographer / Artist: Unknown (Japanese Cartographer)
Date: c. 1890
Medium: Color woodblock print or lithograph on paper
Dimensions: 6.7 × 7.5 in
Location: Maritime Southeast Asia
This Japanese Meiji-era map depicts the region historically referred to as 'Raisia' (the Malay Archipelago or Malesia), covering modern-day Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and surrounding seas. The top right corner contains the title printed in traditional right-to-left Kanji reading '來西亞全圖' (Complete Map of Malesia). Topographical features are rendered with delicate pink hatching, accentuating the mountainous spines across Sumatra, Borneo, Luzon, and Sulawesi. Annotations utilize a combination of classical Chinese characters (Kanji) for major island regions alongside Japanese Katakana script for phonetic renderings such as the Malacca Strait ('マラッカ海峽') and the Philippine Islands ('ヒリッピン諸島'). The map reflects Meiji Japan's growing geopolitical and commercial interest in Southeast Asia during the late nineteenth century as regional cartographic standards shifted toward Western projection systems.
Map of Celebes Island (西里伯島圖)
Cartographer / Artist: Unknown Japanese Cartographer
Date: c. 1870
Medium: Hand-colored woodblock print on paper
Dimensions: 9.4 × 7.2 in
Location: Sulawesi (Celebes), Indonesia
This fine Japanese woodblock map depicts the island of Sulawesi (historically known as Celebes), rendered in a distinctive pink wash with intricate hachured mountain ranges. The map extends to include the surrounding waters of the East Indies, featuring the eastern coastline of Borneo (labeled 婆羅洲島) across the Makassar Strait, as well as the islands of the Maluku archipelago to the east. The title block in the upper right corner clearly designates the sheet as 'Map of Celebes Island' (西里伯島圖). Historical and geographic details are highlighted through traditional kanji text complemented by phonetic Japanese katakana side-annotations, such as 'セレベス' (Celebes) along the strait and 'マカッサル' (Makassar) at the southwestern port settlement of 馬加撒府. This dual labeling reflects the 19th-century Japanese adoption and translation of Western geographical knowledge during the late Edo and early Meiji periods, making it an insightful document of Japanese cartographic history in Maritime Southeast Asia.
Japan & Corea
Cartographer / Artist: John Rapkin, Henry Warren, J. H. Kernot, and John Tallis
Date: c. 1851
Medium: Steel engraving with original outline hand coloring
Dimensions: 14.2 × 10.8 in
Location: Japan and Korea
This fine steel-engraved map titled 'Japan & Corea' was drawn and engraved by John Rapkin, with vignette illustrations by Henry Warren and J. H. Kernot, and published by John Tallis & Company in London and New York c. 1851. Created during the final years of Japan's Sakoku period of isolation—just prior to Commodore Matthew Perry's expedition in 1853—the map provides a fascinating mid-19th-century European perspective of East Asia, detailing both the Japanese archipelago and the Korean peninsula. The map displays detailed topographic and administrative features, including Japanese provinces, major coastal islands, and historical place names such as Yedo (Tokyo), Meaco (Kyoto), and Matsmai (Hokkaido). Korea is depicted with several province names and coastal archipelagos, reflecting contemporary maritime surveying. Surrounding the cartographic layout are three finely engraved vignettes: a top panoramic view of Yedo, a bottom-left depiction of Korean figures in traditional attire, and a bottom-right illustration of an ornate Japanese State Barge. The entire composition is framed within Tallis's signature decorative Greek key and floral border.
Complete Map of Siberia (西伯利亞全圖)
Cartographer / Artist: Unknown Japanese Cartographer
Date: c. 1895
Medium: Lithograph on paper
Dimensions: 7.8 × 6.1 in
Location: Siberia, Russia
This late 19th-century Japanese map depicts Siberia and Northern Asia, titled '西伯利亞全圖' (Complete Map of Siberia). The cartography encompasses the Russian Empire's eastern and northern Asian territories, extending from European Russia and Central Asia across to the Pacific Ocean, Sakhalin, and the Sea of Japan. Topographical features are rendered using hachuring, showing extensive mountain chains alongside major river systems such as the Lena, Yenisey, and Ob. Place names throughout the map are printed in traditional Chinese characters (kanji) with Japanese Katakana phonetic transcriptions for major settlements and regions including Yakutsk, Irkutsk, Vladivostok, and Kamchatka. Graticule lines indicate latitude and longitude, extending toward the Arctic Ocean ('北冰洋'). The map reflects Meiji-era Japanese geopolitical focus and geographical study of the Asian continent during the late 19th century.