Keywords
Art History
Painting
A term which comes from the Portuguese for painting with oil pigments on the reverse side of glass. Fifty such paintings are recorded as having been brought from Holland to the port of Nagasaki in 1663 and presented as gifts to the shogun. Many works were then copied from these Western models and produced in Japan from the 18th century on. Araki Gen'yū 荒木元融 (1728-94), Ishizaki Yūshi 石崎融思 (1768-1846), and Araki Jogen 荒木如元 (1765-1824) were particularly skilled at bīdoro-e. Even the famous artist of *yōfūga 洋風画, Shiba Kōkan 司馬江漢 (1747-1818), is said to have produced bīdoro-e.