Hendrik Caspar Romberg
Hendrik Caspar Romberg (1744 - 1793) was a Dutch bookkeeper, merchant-trader and VOC Opperhoofd in Japan.
Life
Hendrik Caspar Romberg was the son of Zacharias Romberg, a bookprinter/seller on Spui in Amsterdam.[1] Hendrik was baptized not in the opposite Lutheran church, but at home.[2] 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.[3]
He was the Opperhoofd, head of VOC trading post, during four discrete periods:
- 27 October 1782 – August 1783[4]
- November 84 – 21 November 1785
- 21 November 1786 – 30 November 1787
- 1 August 1789 – 13 November 1790
Romberg traveled five times to Edo.[5] In an unknown year he attended a theater performance in Osaka.[6] 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
- ↑ http://books.google.nl/books/about/De_aanlokkelyke_prys_van_Paulus_geestely.html?id=DyrtGwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y
- ↑ Amsterdam City Archives
- ↑ http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_gid001197801_01/_gid001197801_01_0023.php
- ↑ http://www.uchiyama.nl/ngvocopperhoofdennav.htm
- ↑ French, Calvin L. (1974). Shiba Kōkan: artist, innovator, and pioneer in the westernization of Japan, p. 65.
- ↑ http://www.librairie-du-cardinal.com/userfiles/LDC_Cat_AS.pdf
- ↑ 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
- ↑ 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 Historical documents relating to Japan in foreign countries, Vol.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
- 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
| Preceded by Isaac Titsingh |
VOC Opperhoofden at Dejima 1782-1783 |
Succeeded by Isaac Titsingh |
| Preceded by Isaac Titsingh |
VOC Opperhoofden at Dejima 1784-1785 |
Succeeded by Johan Parkeler |
| Preceded by Johan Parkeler |
VOC Opperhoofden at Dejima 1786-1787 |
Succeeded by Johan Parkeler |
| Preceded by Johan Parkeler |
VOC Opperhoofden at Dejima 1789-1790 |
Succeeded by Petrus Chassé |