Johan Willem de Stürler

Johan Willem de Stürler was a Dutch colonel and director of the Dutch trading post at Dejima, Nagasaki, Japan.

Biography

Johan Willem de Sturler was born into the Dutch nobility of the De Stürler family from Switzerland, as a son of Johan Rudolf de Stürler and Agnes Suzanne Soeterik. He had been a tax inspector before entering military service in the Dutch army as an artillery captain. In 1797 de Sturler married Sybille Elisabeth van Biesen at Tiel, the Netherlands, who gave him four children. In 1815 he went with his family to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies.
From 20 November 1823 up to 5 August 1826 he was director of the Dutch trading post on the island Dejima at Nagasaki, Japan, as a successor to Jan Cock Blomhoff. In 1826 he participated in the tribute mission to the court of the Tokugawa shōgun in Edo to reassure the ties between the shogunate and the opperhoofd. During the mission he was accompanied by the physician Philipp Franz von Siebold. The travel from Dejima to Edo lasted almost two months. They were carried in palanquins for the most part over land. De Sturler visited the Shogun at his palace in Edo in May 1826. In August 2026 he left the island and went back to Batavia. He died in Paris in 1855.

Role in art history

Sturler was instrumental in bringing work by Japanese painter Katsushika Hokusai to Europe which had been commissioned by Jan Cock Blomhoff.
The Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris still retains this collection. At first Siebold did not want to pay Hokusai the full agreed price, but Stürler protested and paid in full.

Literature

Page 70 scan on J.W. de Stürler, page 71 continued scan.