Gebel (Jonathan Goble), a Black Man, and a Chinese Man, from the Black Ship scroll

This drawing reflects the artist’s interest in the different ethnic groups that arrived in Japan with Commodore Perry. Standing tall, the man dressed in a blue coat with a sword on his side and a telescope in hand is labeled “Gebel,” and is thought to be the Baptist missionary Jonathan Goble. A man of African descent, identified as kuronbo or “black youth,” sits next to him and would have seemed extremely unusual to the Japanese of that period. Like this depiction, images of black men at the time often showed them half clothed and misshapen. The inscription for the other two figures reads Shinajin, or “Chinese.” The standing man in a green magua jacket wears his somewhat disheveled hair in the Manchu queue with the front half shaven and the back half grown into a long braid, while the seated man wears a conical hat and nondescript clothing.