Hendrik Caspar Romberg (bapt. 11 October 1744 - 15 April 1793)[1] was a Dutch bookkeeper, merchant-trader and VOC Opperhoofd in Japan.
Life[edit]
Hendrik Caspar Romberg was the son of Zacharias Romberg, a bookprinter/seller on Spui in Amsterdam.[2] Hendrik was baptized not in the opposite Lutheran church, but at home.[3] In 1763 he traveled to Batavia in East Asia with the Dutch East Indies Company (or Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC in Dutch). Ten years later he was appointed in Deshima as bookkeeper. Romberg spent more than ten years in Japan. It seems he was good-looking had an affair with a Japanese prostitute.[4]
He was the Opperhoofd, head of VOC trading post, during four discrete periods:
- 27 October 1782 – August 1783[5]
- November 84 – 21 November 1785
- 21 November 1786 – 30 November 1787
- 1 August 1789 – 13 November 1790
Romberg traveled five times to Edo.[6] In an 1789 (May 1) he attended a theater performance in Osaka.https://brill.com/display/book/9789004473591/BP000052.xml (p. 595) ref>http://www.librairie-du-cardinal.com/userfiles/LDC_Cat_AS.pdf [bare URL PDF]</ref> In April 1787 he presented the lord of Satsuma a sweet wine from Jurançon.[7] In 1788 he met with Shiba Kōkan, interested in Western painting, and technique.[8] Romberg's account of the Sangoku-maru is a scant record of the brief attempt by the Tokugawa shogunate to create a sea-going vessel in the 1780s. The ship sank; and the tentative project was abandoned when the political climate in Edo shifted.[9]
In the off-years, he spent time in Batavia, which was at that time the VOC headquarters in the East Indies.[10] The registers also listed him as chief warehouseman and paymaster.[11]
Notes[edit]
- ^ Information on Hendrik Casper Romberg from the VOC records.
- ^ Kloeckhof, Balthasar (1736). "De aanlokkelyke prys van Paulus geestelyke ridderschap, voorgedragen in een lyk-reede, uit 2 Timoth. 4. Vs. 7,8. Ter nagedachtenisse van ... Caspar Heesper".
- ^ Amsterdam City Archives
- ^ "De Gids. Jaargang 141 · DBNL".
- ^ "Japan in al zijn facetten".
- ^ French, Calvin L. (1974). Shiba Kōkan: artist, innovator, and pioneer in the westernization of Japan, p. 65.
- ^ Luxury in the Low Countries: Miscellaneous Reflections on Netherlandish ... geredigeerd door Rengenier C. Rittersma
- ^ http://magazine.sieboldhuis.org/custom/PDF/TNJR_v1_2_2010_van_Gulik_Verschuivende_Perspectieven.pdf [bare URL PDF]
- ^ Screech, Timon. (2006). Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns: Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779-1822, pp. 48-49., p. 48, at Google Books
- ^ Historiographical Institute. (1988). Historical documents relating to Japan in foreign countries, Vol. I, pp. 52, 160.
- ^ Lembaga Kebudajaan Indonesia. (1827). Verhandelingen, Vol. 6, p. 28., p. 28, at Google Books
References[edit]
- French, Calvin L. (1974). Shiba Kōkan: artist, innovator, and pioneer in the westernization of Japan. New York: Weatherhill. ISBN 9780834800984; OCLC 1301516
- Historiographical Institute, the University of Tokyo (東京大学史料編纂所, Tokyo daigaku shiryō hensan-jo). (1963). Historical documents relating to Japan in foreign countries: an inventory of microfilm acquisitions in the library of the Historiographical Institute, the University of Tokyo. OCLC 450710
- Lembaga Kebudajaan Indonesia, Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen. (1827). Verhandelingen, Vol. 6. Bataviaasch: A.C. Nix & Co. OCLC 221461228
- Screech, Timon. (2006). Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns: Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779-1822. London: RoutledgeCurzon. ISBN 978-0-203-09985-8; OCLC 65177072