¡°It¡¯s come pretty much out of nowhere,¡± says British Museum curator Tim Clark, placing a small wooden box on the table ¡ª it¡¯s about the dimensions of a shoebox, slightly weathered and lightly inscribed with fluid kanji characters. ¡°It was in Japan until last summer, where it belonged to a dealer, and before that, we don¡¯t know. In fact there¡¯s still a lot about it we don¡¯t know.¡±
And with that, he takes out a compact bundle, loosens the silk cord around the worn cloth cover, and lays the Japanese section¡¯s latest, almost half-a-million-pound (?75 million), acquisition gently down on the table and starts unrolling it. I have my dictaphone running, and when I listen back there¡¯s almost a minute when I¡¯ve gone completely silent as I watch Clark reveal this treasure ¡ª which goes on display to the general public on April 18.
The piece is a jawdroppingly fine, 15-meter-long handscroll depicting the arrival in Japan of Commodore Matthew C. Perry and the nine famous black ships in February 1854. It was Perry¡¯s second visit, and culminated in the signing of the Convention of Kanagawa on March 31, which effectively ended Japan¡¯s centuries of sakoku (closed country) diplomatic seclusion.
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