Dirk de Graeff van Polsbroek
[5] Dirk de Graeff van Polsbroek was also an avid chronicler and photographer of Japanese social change at the time of the Meiji Restoration.
[7] The family De Graeff van Polsbroek belonged to the patrician class of Amsterdam[3] and held the feudal titles Free Lord of Zuid-Polsbroek as those of Purmerland and Ilpendam.
Dirk lived in Japan with his Japanese housekeeper Koyama Ochō with whom he had a son Pieter de Graeff (Yokohama, 8 June 1861 - 7 August 1914, Bwool, Netherlands Indies).
[9] In 1872 he married Bonne Elisabeth Roijer (also Royer) (1847-1927), daughter of the naval captain Georg Roijer (also Royer) (1817-1871) and Anna Petronella Barones Mulert to de Leemcule (1815-1909)[10][8] as well as maternal granddaughter of Adriana Petronella Imperial countess of Nassau-LaLecq (1757-1789) and thus a direct descendant of prince William the Silent (William I of Orange-Nassau) and Maurice, Prince of Orange.
The Dutch Gift was a collection of 28 mostly Italian Renaissance paintings and 12 classical sculptures, along with a yacht, the Mary, and furniture, which was presented by the States-General of the Netherlands in 1660 to King Charles II of England upon his restoration to the English throne.
After having worked for the Netherlands Indian government in Batavia, in 1856 as secretary,[12] he was appointed on Dejima in June 1857 as assistant 2nd class to the Factory of Dutch Trade led by Janus Henricus Donker Curtius.
[15] On January 15, 1861, his friend Hendrick Heusken, a Dutch citizen employed by Harris in Edo as a secretary and interpreter, succumbed to his wounds he received the day before in an attack by anti-Western ronin (samurai).
[10] The arrival of the first Prussian consul (for the North German Confederation) Max August Scipio von Brandt in late 1862 completed the line of the few western diplomats in Japan.
[4] When Switzerland also sent a representative to Japan in 1863/64, Aimé Humbert, De Graeff van Polsbroek supported him in negotiations with the Japanese government officials in Edo in order to conclude a bilateral treaty.
[19] In the same year he also took over the Prussian representation and reported to chancellor Otto von Bismarck that the wage agreement had come about and that Japanese people were allowed to go abroad in the course of their studies.
On March 23, 1868, De Graeff van Polsbroek and the French Minister-Resident Léon Roches were the first European envoys ever to receive a personal audience with the new Emperor Meiji in Edo (Tokyo).
However, since Meiji wanted to enter into diplomatic relations with the major European powers, he asked De Graeff van Polsbroek for his support.
[1] De Graeff van Polsbroek played a central role in establishing the political and economic relations between the Scandinavian states of Denmark and Sweden-Norway and Japan.
