Arti­cle: Japanese Emissaries in Sixteenth-Century Europe

Focus on the Peck Feature

In 1585, a del­e­ga­tion of four Chris­t­ian Japan­ese boys from the island of Kyushu, known as The Boys’ Embassy of the Ten­shō Peri­od, arrived in Europe to meet some of the most impor­tant polit­i­cal and reli­gious fig­ures of the peri­od, chief among them King Philip II of Spain and popes Gre­go­ry XIII and Six­tus V. Eighty years after this his­toric event, Flem­ish painter Abra­ham van Diepen­beeck cre­at­ed a draw­ing of the encounter between The Boys’ Embassy and King Phillip II of Spain. This Focus on the Peck Col­lec­tion instal­la­tion presents Van Diepenbeeck’s draw­ing along­side the engrav­ing based on it, pub­lished in the 1667 book Ker­ck­e­ly­cke his­to­rie van de ghe­heele wereldt (The Eccle­si­as­ti­cal His­to­ry of the Whole World). 


The Jesuit order of the Roman Catholic Church reached Japan in 1549 and con­vert­ed thou­sands of peo­ple to Chris­tian­i­ty with­in a short peri­od. In 1585, a del­e­ga­tion of four Chris­t­ian Japan­ese boys from the island of Kyushu arrived in Europe to meet some of the most impor­tant polit­i­cal and reli­gious fig­ures of the peri­od, chief among them King Philip II of Spain and popes Gre­go­ry XIII and Six­tus V. Known as The Boys’ Embassy of the Ten­shō Peri­od, the voyage’s pur­pose was three­fold: to demon­strate the Jesuits’ achieve­ments in Japan, to secure con­tin­ued finan­cial back­ing for their mis­sion, and to impress the Japan­ese vis­i­tors with the sights of Europe (for the future ben­e­fit of Chris­tian­i­ty in Japan). Orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed as a mod­est visit, it quick­ly became a grand affair. The boys were treat­ed as dis­tin­guished vis­i­tors, hon­ored with ban­quets and fes­ti­vals in Por­tu­gal, Spain, and Italy, which attract­ed wide­spread atten­tion among Euro­peans beyond the inter­ests of the Church. 

Eighty years after this his­toric event, Flem­ish painter Abra­ham van Diepen­beeck cre­at­ed a draw­ing of a spe­cif­ic aspect of the trip — the encounter between The Boys’ Embassy and King Phillip II of Spain. This Focus on the Peck Col­lec­tion instal­la­tion presents Van Diepenbeeck’s draw­ing along­side the engrav­ing based on it, pub­lished in the 1667 book known in Eng­lish as The Eccle­si­as­ti­cal His­to­ry of the Whole World. Ded­i­cat­ed to the his­to­ry of the Church’s mis­sion­ary activ­i­ties, the rich­ly illus­trat­ed book became a stan­dard resource for many Euro­peans to learn about dis­tant cul­tures, includ­ing Japan.

Abra­ham van Diepen­beeck, King Phillip II of Spain Receiv­ing the Japan­ese Del­e­ga­tion in Madrid, c. 1667

Abraham van Diepenbeeck, Flemish, 1596 – 1675, King Phillip II of Spain Receiving the Japanese Delegation in Madrid, c. 1667, black chalk, gray and brown washes with white highlights on paper. Drawing.

Abra­ham van Diepen­beeck, Flem­ish, 1596 – 1675, King Phillip II of Spain Receiv­ing the Japan­ese Del­e­ga­tion in Madrid, c. 1667, black chalk, gray and brown wash­es with white high­lights on paper, The Peck Col­lec­tion, 2017.1.121.

See King Phillip II of Spain Receiv­ing the Japan­ese Del­e­ga­tion in Madrid in more detail here.

In addi­tion to his work as a painter, Abra­ham van Diepen­beeck pro­duced over 750 draw­ings for engrav­ings through­out his career. Here he illus­trates the 1585 arrival of The Boys’ Embassy of the Ten­shō Peri­od in Madrid to meet King Philip II of Spain. Set in a grand archi­tec­tur­al set­ting, three boys kneel before the king who stands among reli­gious and court offi­cials. While the artist has dis­tin­guished the boys as Japan­ese by their hair­styles and swords, he depict­ed their facial fea­tures with an ide­al­ized west­ern appearance. 

In his later draw­ings, Van Diepen­beeck employed a com­bi­na­tion of black chalk, pen and ink, and vari­a­tions of brown and gray wash applied in lay­ers. He also includ­ed high­lights and cor­rec­tions in opaque white, seen here espe­cial­ly in Philip II’s face and behind the fig­ures’ heads direct­ly to his left.

Fred­erik Bout­tats the younger, after Abra­ham van Diepen­beeck, King Phillip II of Spain Receiv­ing the Japan­ese Del­e­ga­tion in Madrid, 1667

Frederik Bouttats the younger, after Abraham van Diepenbeeck, Flemish, died 1676, King Phillip II of Spain Receiving the Japanese Delegation in Madrid, 1667, engraving on paper.

Fred­erik Bout­tats the younger, after Abra­ham van Diepen­beeck, Flem­ish, died 1676, King Phillip II of Spain Receiv­ing the Japan­ese Del­e­ga­tion in Madrid, 1667, engrav­ing on paper, The Peck Col­lec­tion, 2017.1.133.

See the engrav­ing King Phillip II of Spain Receiv­ing the Japan­ese Del­e­ga­tion in Madrid in more detail here.

Fred­erik Bout­tats’ engrav­ing after Abra­ham van Diepenbeeck’s draw­ing appears in reverse due to the print­ing process. It was one of many pro­duced by Van Diepen­beeck and oth­ers for the first vol­ume of Cor­nelis Hazart’s The Eccle­si­as­ti­cal His­to­ry of the Whole World, pub­lished in Antwerp in 1667. The last book to include Van Diepenbeeck’s designs, it pro­vid­ed social, polit­i­cal, and reli­gious infor­ma­tion about var­i­ous places around the world, with a spe­cif­ic empha­sis on Jesuit mis­sion­ary activ­i­ties. The near­ly 500-page work includ­ed reports about Asia, South Amer­i­ca, and North America. 

At the time of the book’s pub­li­ca­tion, Jesuits had already been expelled from Japan. Although they were ini­tial­ly wel­comed there and sev­er­al impor­tant daimyō, or feu­dal lords, embraced the new reli­gion, in 1614 the Toku­gawa mil­i­tary gov­ern­ment out­lawed Chris­tian­i­ty until 1873, when it was made legal again.

July 7 to Octo­ber 16, 2022