, 1820s by Kawahara for von Siebold, 1820s with his Japanese lover Kusumoto Otaki and their baby-daughter
Kusumoto Ine observing with a
teresukoppu (
telescope) a Dutch ship towed into Nagasaki harbour (1827–1903), first female Japanese western physician and court physician to the Japanese empress
Early life Born into a family of doctors and professors of medicine in
Würzburg (then in the
Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg, later part of
Bavaria), von Siebold initially studied medicine at the
University of Würzburg from November 1815, where he became a member of the
Corps Moenania Würzburg. One of his professors was
Franz Xaver Heller (1775–1840), author of the '''' ("Flora of the Grand Duchy of Würzburg", 1810–1811). In 1824, von Siebold started a medical school in Nagasaki, the
Narutaki-juku, that grew into a meeting place for around fifty
students. They helped him in his botanical and naturalistic studies. The Dutch language became the
lingua franca (common spoken language) for these academic and scholarly contacts for a generation, until the
Meiji Restoration. His patients paid him in kind with a variety of objects and artifacts that would later gain historical significance. These everyday objects later became the basis of his large
ethnographic collection, which consisted of everyday household goods,
woodblock prints, tools and hand-crafted objects used by the Japanese people.
Japanese family During his stay in Japan, von Siebold "lived together" with Kusumoto Taki 楠本滝,
Studies of Japanese fauna and flora His main interest, however, focused on the study of Japanese fauna and flora. He collected as much material as he could. Starting a small botanical garden behind his home (there was not much room on the small island) Von Siebold amassed over 1,000 native plants. All derive from a single female plant collected by von Siebold. During his stay at Dejima, von Siebold sent three shipments with an unknown number of herbarium specimens to
Leiden,
Ghent,
Brussels and
Antwerp. The shipment to Leiden contained the first specimens of the
Japanese giant salamander (
Andrias japonicus) to be sent to Europe. In 1825 the government of the Dutch-Indies provided him with two assistants: apothecary and mineralogist
Heinrich Bürger (his later successor) and the painter
Carl Hubert de Villeneuve. Each would prove to be useful to Von Siebold's efforts that ranged from ethnographical to botanical to horticultural, when attempting to document the exotic Eastern Japanese experience. De Villeneuve taught Kawahara the techniques of Western painting. Reportedly, von Siebold was not the easiest man to deal with. He was in continuous conflict with his Dutch superiors who felt he was arrogant. This threat of conflict resulted in his recall in July 1827 back to Batavia. But the ship, the
Cornelis Houtman, sent to carry him back to Batavia, was thrown ashore by a typhoon in Nagasaki bay. The same storm badly damaged Dejima and destroyed Von Siebold's botanical garden. Repaired, the
Cornelis Houtman was refloated. It left for Batavia with 89 crates of von Siebold's salvaged botanical collection, but von Siebold himself remained behind in Dejima.
Von Siebold Incident In 1826 von Siebold made the court journey to
Edo together with the Dutch ‘opperhoofd’ colonel
De Stürler. During this long trip he collected many plants and animals. But he also obtained from the court astronomer Takahashi Kageyasu several detailed maps of Japan and Korea (written by
Inō Tadataka), an act strictly forbidden by the Japanese government. Von Siebold's successor in Japan, Heinrich Bürger, sent him three more shipments of herbarium specimens collected in Japan. This flora collection formed the basis of the Japanese collections of the
National Herbarium of the Netherlands in Leiden, while the zoological specimens Von Siebold collected were kept by the
Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie (
National Museum of Natural History) in Leiden, which later became Naturalis. Both institutions merged into
Naturalis Biodiversity Center in 2010, which now maintains the entire natural history collection that von Siebold brought back to Leiden. In 1845 von Siebold married Helene von Gagern (1820–1877), they had three sons and two daughters.
Writings During his stay in Leiden, Von Siebold wrote
Nippon in 1832, the first part of a volume of a richly illustrated ethnographical and geographical work on Japan. The
Archiv zur Beschreibung Nippons also contained a report of his journey to the Shogunate Court at Edo. The zoologists
Coenraad Temminck (1777–1858),
Hermann Schlegel (1804–1884), and
Wilhem de Haan (1801–1855) scientifically described and documented Von Siebold's collection of Japanese animals. He notably advised
Townsend Harris on how
Christianity might be spread to Japan, alleging based on his time there that the Japanese "hated" Christianity. In 1858, the Japanese government lifted the banishment of von Siebold. He returned to Japan in 1859 as an adviser to the Agent of the Dutch Trading Society (Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij) in Nagasaki, Albert Bauduin. After two years the connection with the Trading Society was severed as the advice of von Siebold was considered to be of no value. In Nagasaki he fathered another child with one of his female servants. In 1861 von Siebold organised his appointment as an adviser to the Japanese government and went in that function to Edo. There he tried to obtain a position between the foreign representatives and the Japanese government. As he had been specially admonished by the Dutch authorities before going to Japan that he was to abstain from all interference in politics, the Dutch Consul General in Japan, J.K. de Wit, was ordered to ask von Siebold's removal. Von Siebold was ordered to return to Batavia and from there he returned to Europe. After his return he asked the Dutch government to employ him as Consul General in Japan but the Dutch government severed all relations with von Siebold who had a huge debt because of loans given to him, except for the payment of his pension. Von Siebold kept trying to organise another voyage to Japan. After he did not succeed in gaining employment with the Russian government, he went to Paris in 1865 to try to interest the French government in funding another expedition to Japan, but failed. He died in
Munich on 18 October 1866. ==Legacy==