Japan as artefact and archive: Nineteenth-century photographic collections in Boston

Abstract

In the 1870s and 1880s a number of prominent Bostonians — from science, academia, the art world and established families — travelled to Japan. Some stayed for several months, some for many years. Upon their return they proselytized about their wondrous travel experiences, drawing converts to the study and appreciation of Japanese culture through lectures, publications and access to their collections of Japanese art and artefacts. As a result, Boston became the undisputed centre of Iaponism in the United States during the last several decades of the nineteenth century. Many of the collections made their way into area institutions. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts obtained the largest collection of Japanese art outside of Japan; this collection remains in the forefront of the field today. The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, Cambridge, and the Peabody Essex Museum, located thirty-five miles north of Boston in Salem, Massachusetts, acquired extensive collections of Japanese art and ethnography. A third type of collection is also prominent in the area but hides in the shadows of institutional archives — nineteenth- century photographs of Japan. These photographs have been the neglected element in the study of Iaponism in the United States.1