Bell House at Simoda (Type I)

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of complete lithograph

Bell house and bell in the Shinto Temple.

Commodore Perry visited the newly opened port of Simoda on the 18th of April, 1854. He remained there until the 9th of May. This particular excursion resulted in a total of 15 lithographs, which is approximately 17% of all the lithographs in the Narrative. It appears that Commodore Perry was very much impressed with Simoda and found many aspects of it to represent typical facets of Japanese culture and life. These were recorded in paintings by Heine.

The Narrative described Simoda as a town of approximately 1,000 houses and 7,000 inhabitants located on a small island near the mouth Yedo Bay. While the town appeared to the expedition members to be impoverished and lacking significant trading facilities, they were impressed with its beauty and cleanliness.

The titles/lettering read:

• Dag by E. Brown, Jr.


• Lith of Sarony & Co. New York (Type I)


• Lith of Sarony & Co. N.Y. (Type II)


• BELL HOUSE AT SHIMODA (Type I)


• BELL-HOUSE AT SHIMODA (Type II)

Left edge (binding edge) is ragged. Image area is tilted down and to the left. More than normal tilt.

Paper thickness is 9mm.

Two minor types of this lithograph have been noted. They have minor variations in the basic picture. In the title of Type I, there is no hyphen between "Bell" and House" (BELL HOUSE AT SHIMODA). In Type II, there is a hyphen between "Bell" and "House" (BELL-HOUSE AT SHIMODA). In Type I, the right title has "New York" (spelled out) while in Type II it is "N.Y." (abbreviated).

Portrait Format

Page Size (cm): 29x22.6cm

Image Size (cm): Width-24.1, Height-16.9 Dia 29.4