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Kutsuki Masatsuna

, also known as Kutsuki Oki-no kami Minamoto-no Masatsuna, was a Japanese daimyō of the Fukuchiyama Domain and a scholar of numismatics and Dutch studies (rangaku).

His childhood name was Tomojiro (斧次郎). Kutsuki was hereditary daimyō of Oki and Ōmi with holdings in Tanba and Fukuchiyama. His warrior clan was amongst the hereditary vassals of the Tokugawa family (the fudai) in the Edo period.

Scholarship

Kutsuki was a polymath and a keen student of whatever information was available at that time concerning the West. Since most printed material was only available in the Dutch language, such studies were commonly called "Dutch learning" (rangaku).

He studied rangaku with the physician , and associated with the Dutch during their visits to Edo as well as with the interpreters at Nagasaki.

The Dutch trade official and japanologist Isaac Titsingh considered Kutsuki to have been his closest friend while he was in Japan, and their correspondence continued after Titsingh left Dejima for the last time. The oldest surviving letter from Kutsuki to Titsingh dates from 1789; and this letter mentions mutual friends such as Shimazu Shigehide (the father-in-law of the eleventh shōgun, Tokugawa Ienari) and Kuze Hirotami (Nagasaki bugyō or governor of Nagasaki port). Later Titsingh sent him Nicolas Sanson's world atlas (with the Netherlands circled in red ink), upon which Kutsuki based his studies of European geography.

Kutsuki and Titsingh shared an interest in numismatics. After Titsingh was reassigned from Japan in 1784, he sent packages of coins from India—Dutch coppers, as well as coins from India, Russia, Turkey, and Africa. Titsingh in turn received Japanese and Chinese coins as gifts. Kutsuki was an author of several treatises on numismatics, and was the first in Japan to circulate a book about non-Japanese coins with impressions taken from actual coins which had been obtained from Western traders. His collection of coins was brought to the UK in the 19th century, and is now in the British Museum and the Ashmolean Museum.

Family

  • Father: Kutsuki Tsunasada (1713–1788)
  • Foster Father: Kutsuki Nobutsuna (1731–1787)
  • Wives:
  • Ikumanhime, Matsudaira Munenobu's daughter
  • Honda Sukemitsu's daughter
  • Ito Nagatoshi's daughter
  • Children:
  • Yuunosuke
  • Kutsuki Tsunakata (1787–1838), adopted by Tomotsuna
  • Yonekura Masanaga
  • Fukuju Taro
  • Adopted Son: Katsuki Tomotsuna (1767–1803)

Events of the daimyōs life

  • 1781 (Tenmei 1): This numismatist scholar's book, Shinzen zenpu ("Newly selected manual of numismatics"), was published.
  • 1782 (Tenmei 2): This numismatist scholar's analysis of copper currency in China and Japan "Shinzen zenpu" was presented to the emperor.
  • 1785 (Tenmei 5): This numismatist scholar's book, Kaisei kōhō zukan ("Corrected Illustrated mirror of coinage"), was published.
  • 1785 (Tenmei 5): Masatsuna inherited his father's position and titles.
  • 1787 (Tenmei 7): This rangaku/numismatist scholar's book, Seiyō senpu (Notes on Western Coinage), with plates showing European and colonial currency, was completed. -- see online image of 2 adjacent pages from library collection of Kyoto University of Foreign Studies and Kyoto Junior College of Foreign Languages
  • 1789 (Kansei 1): This rangaku/geographer scholar's book, Taisei yochi zusetsu ("Illustrated explanation of Western geography"), was published.
  • 1800 (Kansei 11): Masatsuna retires, handing over his position and titles to his son, Mototsuna.
  • 1801 (Kansei 12): Mototsuna predeceased his father, and Masatsuna's grandson, Tsunagata becomes daimyō.
  • 1802 (Kansei 13): Masatsuna dies.
  • 1807 (Bunka 4): Isaac Titsingh sends his last letter to Masatsuna from Europe, not knowing that his old friend had died some years earlier. Titsingh's decided to dedicate his translation of Nihon Ōdai Ichiran to Masatsuna.

Selected work

Kutsuki's published writings encompass 8 works in 12 publications in 1 language and 25 library holdings.

  • 1781 --
  • 1785 -- ; note that only one copy known to exist.
  • 1787 -- , also romanized as Seiyō senpu
  • 1789 -- .
  • 1790 —

Notes

References

Further reading

  • The private correspondence of Kutsuki Masatsuna and Isaac Titsingh, 1785–1807: compiled in celebration of the friendship between Kutsuki Masatsuna and Isaac Titsingh, Fukuchiyama, November 1992. OCLC 069107485
  • Catalogue of the Japanese coin collection (pre-Meiji) at the British Museum, with special reference to Kutsuki Masatsuna, by Shin’ichi Sakuraki, Helen Wang and Peter Kornicki, with Nobuhisa Furuta, Timon Screech and Joe Cribb, British Museum Research Publication 174 (2010), .