Expéditions

1853 · 34749 — Edo 1853. Watercolour and ink drawing on Japanese paper. A contemporary Japanese watercolour of Commodore Perry and members of his expedition produced at the moment of the American squadron’s arrival in Japan and the opening of sustained diplomatic contact between Japan and the United States.<br/> <br/> This lively drawing belongs to the immediate visual culture generated by Commodore Matthew C. Perry's arrival in Japan in 1853. Perry entered Edo Bay in July 1853 to deliver President Fillmore's request for a treaty and returned the following year leading to the Treaty of Kanagawa on 31 March 1854. The event prompted wide Japanese interest in the appearance dress equipment and conduct of the visiting Americans and images of the "Black Ships" and their crews circulated in manuscript painted and printed form. The composition presents three American figures isolated against the paper ground arranged almost as a study of types. At right Commodore Perry is shown seated in a chair wearing a dark naval coat and holding his hat. At center stands an armed crewman or marine in a red jacket holding a musket upright; at left another crewman kneels while looking through a telescope or spyglass. The emphasis falls on uniform posture weaponry and optical instrument details that would have marked the Americans as visually and technologically unfamiliar to Japanese observers. The drawing is especially interesting as a Japanese interpretation of the expedition distinct from the official American pictorial record produced by artists such as Wilhelm Heine. The Japanese manuscript images such as the present work preserve a different perspective shaped by local observation report and curiosity. unknown