Large Woodcut Watercoloured Map Illustrating the Remote and Mostly Uninhabited Nanpo and Ogasawara Archipelagos

English translation of map title: [The Complete Map of the Seven Islands of Izu with a Map of the Eighty Uninhabited Islands.] Large woodcut watercoloured map titled to illustrate the remote and mostly uninhabited Nanpo and Ogasawara archipelagos, lying some 1000 kilometers south of Tokyo, of the important and banned map produce jointly by scholar and official Tojo Kindai and Abe Rekisai, from a limited run of 500 maps printed in 1848, for private distribution, not for sale to the public owing to the Tempo reform which oppressed any interest in subject matters concerning Western interests (Hawaiians and westerners were inhabiting the island). Kindai was imprisoned and subsequently exiled from Edo for the publication of the map; Rekisai was a promoter of Japanese settlement of the Bonin islands and it appears that he may have been spared from persecution. Folded and mounted to two striped cardstock boards at two ends for neat storage, also giving it the appearance of a typical Japanese book for concealing the content. Title, legend, placenames, and detailed descriptions, are all in Japanese. Map measures approximately 105 x 76 cm, folding into sleeve for safe storage at approximately 25 x 18 cm. Some age-toning, title label to boards worn, reinforced to one fold, otherwise in very good condition, beautifully preserved, with lovely colour accents, extensive detail, and retianing a strong impression. A rare surviving woodcut map that was banned by the shogunate. Tojo Kindai (1795-1878) was a Confucian scholar, calligrapher and cartographer active in Edo, where he was born, during the mid-nineteenth century. He studied under Ota Kinjo and Kameda Pengsai, and later served the Fukushima Daimyo. His aim with the production of this map was to illustrate the strategic importance of the Bonin islands, but by doing so, revealed secret information, essentially information about Western civilians and their successful agragarian activites on the islands. Knowledge of western ways was strictly prohibited. He was gaoled for seven months, then exiled from Edo for eight years after producing the map, which centered on the coveted southern islands that would become Japan's first overseas colony only fourteen years later (still during his lifetime). Ironically, criminals in Edo were often confined on Hachijojima island (in which he clearly took interest) or Miyakejima of the nearby Izu island group, especially political prisoners such as Kindai would have been labeled. Abe Rekisai (1805-1870), also known as Abe Yoshito, Abe Tomonoshin, and Hashukuen, born in the Toshima District of Edo, was a Japanese botanist, herbalist and author who published many works, with subjects on horticulture, botany, and even social conflict resolution. In 1856 he published geographic descriptions of Hokkaido where Abe Sho¯nin, his ancestor, twice visited to collect medicinal plants, commissioned by the Shogunate government (Bakufu). A most fascinating map produced twenty years before Japan's Tokugawa (Edo) shogunate had claimed the Nanpo and Ogasawara archipelagos lying some 1000 kilometers south of Tokyo in 1862, the islands are named, and communication routes between them are clearly indicated. Mountain ranges are also shown, both on and around the islands. It was the height of the Tempo reform of 1841-1843 when Kindai first published the map, a highly risky endeavour with the economic and political reform that dealt a sweeping blow to the publishing industry. Resolute and unflappable, Kindai continued to seek out more information on the subject, and again printed a small number of his map, slightly revised, in 1848. It too, was banned by the shogunate, who undoubtedly gathered and destroyed all copies they could find, a common practice of the day, which yet again inspired and necessitated scholars to become clandestine transcribers of important works. For his map, now produced twice and deemed "an act of political agitation," Kindai found himself in violation of strict prohibitions against the publication of coastal maps, a rule motivated by security concerns of the isolationists. As such, after printing 500 woodcut copies of the slightly revised version in 1848, again for private distribution, he was discovered, tried in court, sent to a gaol for seven months, and began a criminal sentence that banished him from Edo for eighteen years (Kokushi daijiten.) The present map is an exceedingly scarce limited woodcut print which survived the shogunate's "ban and destroy" campaign while Kindai sat in the gaol.