Four Large Cities in the World / Map of the World

This couple of eight-panel screens, which depicts the world map and Four European cities (Lisbon, Seville, Rome, and Constantinople), were painted in Japan in the beginning years of the Edo period (early 17th century). They are thought that the world map was borrowed from a large decorative map of the world revised from a 1607 map by the Dutch chart maker Willem Janszoon Blaeu, and published in 1609 by the Dutch engraver Petrus Kaerius (Pieter van den Keere). Another screen that depicts four cities was probably based on illustrations in some European books like “Civitates Orbis Terrarum” first published by Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg in 1572, which carries many plates of cityscapes in Europe, and in “Vita Beati Patris Iganatii Loyolae (the biography of Sent Ignatius of Loyola)” published in Antwerp in 1610.