JAPANESE WATERCOLOURS. Krusenstern Voyage. 1 page of text and 50 original watercolours. Quarto size, bound in Japanese concertina form, original paper over boards, paper title-label on top cover. Housed in a new Japanese shitzu folding case. [Tokyo ?, ca. 1840].

A fascinating album of watercolours made after the originals painted during the first Russian circumnavigation undertaken by the vessel Nadezhda under Ivan F. Krusenstern with the purpose of establishing trade with China and Japan.

The expedition landed briefly in Brazil and rounded Cape Horn, visiting the Marquesas Islands, Hawaii, Kamchatka and Japan. Among the subjects portrayed in their native costume are: a Chinese scholar with two students holding books; two Chinese ladies; a Korean couple; a Siamese couple with their child; a Persian couple; a Javanese couple; a French couple; a Spanish couple; a Portuguese couple; a Russian couple; a German couple; an English couple; two Greenlanders; a couple from Guinea; an African couple; a Brazilian couple; two inhabitants of Kamchatka.

The quality of the watercolours is fine. This album is a copy made in 1840 of a copy made in 1822 from the original which must date from around the time of Krusenstern's voyage in 1803-1806. The manuscript text is in Japanese at the outer margins and in Dutch at the top margin.