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In 1649, while traveling from Nagasaki to Edo (modern Tokyo), the visiting Dutch Embassy made an obligatory stop in Kyoto where they saw the Great Buddha of Hōkō-ji. The Great Buddha stood nearly 60 feet tall and was completed in 1612, replacing an older destroyed icon.

The original Dutch report by Andries Frisius was eventually published by Arnoldus Montanus in 1669 as part of his Atlas Japannensis. Based in part on the report of Frisius, the printer, Jacob van Meurs, had a large copperplate engraving made to illustrate the embassy’s visit.

The temple icon was Vairocana Buddha which was described by Montanus as a “terrible Image… with his Legs across under him.” Furthermore, “the whole statue represents a Woman sitting in a Ring of Darting beams richly gilded.”

Van Meurs’ engravers seemingly took inspiration from the text, but also had to draw upon their own visual repertoire to fill in details. This includes the masonry columns in the back of the temple as well as playful cherub-like figures in the “Ring of Darting beams.”

“Two horrible Fiends, with Stiletto’s in their hands” – certainly the fearsome Niō – are described a guarding the temple entrance. The engraver places these grotesque figures inside the main temple hall.

Atlas Japannensis was first published in Dutch in 1669; an English version came the following year. The hand-colored print shown here came from the French edition of 1680. As noted by Isa van Eeghen, the English legend was burnished off of the plate and re-inscribed in French.

By the time of printing, the colossal Buddha of Hōkō-ji had been destroyed by an earthquake in 1662; a wooden image replaced it in 1667. The 1669 Dutch edition of Atlas Japannensis has been digitized by the National Library of the Netherlands, viewable here: tinyurl.com/5n6kstfy.

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