Maartje van den Heuvel
Leiden University Libraries. Curator of Photography
Tani Akiyoshi
University of Tokyo. Historiographical institute. Photography Specialist
Light over Dejima: The Dutch-Japanese Connection in the Introduction of Photography in Japan (1840–1870)
The first photographic image of Japan emerged from Dutch–Japanese collaboration in pioneering photography on the island of Dejima. In the 1850s, photography was taught within the framework of the earliest 'Dutch studies': education in modern science and technology provided by Dutch physicians at the medical clinic on Dejima to selected groups of Japanese students. Dr Jan Karel van den Broek (1814–1865) installed a photographic darkroom in the clinic. Using chemicals from Dejima’s pharmacy and European photographic manuals, Dutch and Japanese practitioners worked together as pioneers. These experiments marked the emergence of photography in Japan.
The Japanese photographer Ueno Hikoma (1838–1904) was trained in this way by the Dutch physician Johan Pompe van Meerdervoort (1829–1908). Ueno subsequently established the first photographic studio in Japan, in Nagasaki, in 1862. Dutch physician Antoon Bauduin (1820–1885) set up a photographic studio on Dejima, where Japanese and European visitors were portrayed. Bauduin, and later other Dutch residents and travellers, produced and collected photographs of people, events, and scenes, now preserved in albums in the Special Collections of Leiden and Nagasaki University Libraries, as well as in museums such as the Rijksmuseum, the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam, and the Royal Collections in The Hague.
These images not only constitute a fascinating record of the earliest phase of photography in Japan. They also depict the country during a period of profound transition—from a closed society to a nation opening itself to modernity and exchange with the Western world.
Akiyoshi Tani and Maartje van den Heuvel present the results of their recent research. They are the authors and editors of the forthcoming book Light over Dejima on this history, to be released on 24 September 2026, alongside an exhibition of the same name at the SieboldHuis in Leiden (24 September 2026 to 28 February 2027).