Details

Standardized Title:

Gunkan zukai.
軍艦図解. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n88136424
水戰軍今大畧紀聞.

Other Title:

Gunkan zukai kōrei
軍艦圖解考例

Subjects:

Astronomical instruments.
Merchant ships.
History.
Merchant ships -- History.
Warships -- History.
Warships.
Naval architecture -- History.
Naval architecture.
Astronomical instruments -- Early works to 1800.

Form/Genre:

Diagrams.
Scrolls (information artifacts)
Manuscripts, Japanese.
Manuscripts, Digital.

Language:

Japanese.

Summary:

Scroll of diagrams and text concerning the construction and compartmentalization of European ships, referred to as battleships, all on the recto side. At the top of the scroll is a thin piece of wood and a tie that wraps around the scroll; a paper label in Japanese is on the verso of the beginning of the scroll. Sheets of a different kind of paper, of the same width but different length, are used for backing.

Notes:

Ms. roll.
Title from outer label. Translated as "An illustrated guide to Western ships."
Layout: Written in vertical columns of characters perpendicular to the length of the scroll.
Script: Written in Japanese script.
Decoration: 4 detailed full side diagrams of ships, 1 with a top pennant that unfolds above the upper edge of the scroll and 1 with a damaged foldout top pennant; 22 partial diagrams, including ship cross-sections and diagrams of astronomical and navigational equipment; many diagrams rubricated in red, some with syllables that are keyed to text describing the parts or areas of a ship.
Origin: Written in Nagasaki, circa 1800.
Caption title from first preface.
Roll has additional textual content after final image with title "Suisengun kontairyaku kibun."

Local notes:

Version with undated preface and rubricated diagrams of astrolabe and sundial in section 4 ("dai 4-gō").
Lawrence J. Schoenberg & Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative.

Penn Provenance:

Sold by Sam Fogg Ltd. (London) to Lawrence J. Schoenberg, 1999.
Deposit by Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle, 2013.
Gift of Barbara Brizdle Schoenberg, 2019.

Cited in:

Described in Transformation of knowledge: early manuscripts from the collection of Lawrence J. Schoenberg (London: Paul Holberton, 2006), p. 122 (LJS 454).

Cited as:

Oversize UPenn LJS 454.

Contributor:

Motoki, Shōei, 1767-1822, translator.
Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection (University of Pennsylvania)
本木正榮, 1767-1822, translator.

Contains:

Suisengun kontairyaku kibun.
水戰軍今大畧紀聞.

OCLC:

858634585

Web link:

The Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative Fund Home Page