Aesthetics and Ethnography: Japan in East Asian collections in Leiden, Milan, The Hague and Venice

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Aesthetics and

Ethnography:

Japan in East Asian collections in Leiden, Milan, The Hague

and Venice

Maria Montcalm 11351799

Museum Studies (Heritage Studies) Master’s Thesis

Supervisor: Bram Kempers

Second Reader: Charlotte van Rappard-Boon 29-3-2019

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List of Illustrations

Figure 1. Map of the 1883 International Exhibition grounds... 16

Figure 2. Legend of Exhibition grounds map. ... 17

Figure 3. Amida Buddha 1716, bought from Dirk Boer in 1883 (RV-417-81). ... 19

Figure 4. Selection of objects bought from Dirk Boer in 1883. From top left, clockwise: bronze temple lantern (RV-417-104b), bronze elephant surmounted by a pagoda 417-103a), bronze Kannon statuette 417-93), bronze statue of Shozen doji (RV-417-100), bronze Shishi incense burner (RV-417-107), bronze incense holder in the shape of a cow (RV-417-105-a, RV-417-105-b). ... 20

Figure 5. Buddhas purchased from Bing in 1883. From top left, clockwise: Ichiji Kinrin (RV-418-2), Yakushi Nyorai (RV-418-1), Ichiji Kinrin (RV-418-4), Dainichi Nyorai (RV-418-5). The last three are from the Tokugawa Mausoleum in Zojoji, cast in 1648. ... 22

Figure 6. Amida Buddha purchased by Giussani in Yokohama. ... 32

Figure 7. Sala dei Bronzi at Castello Sforzesco 1901-1902... 35

Figure 8. Japansche Zaal/ Salon Japonais at the Grand Royal Bazar. Hendrik Wilhelmus Lust, De Japanse zaal in de Grand Bazar, ca.1854. ... 40

Figure 9. Japan-inspired party at Pulchri Studio, The Hague, 1900. ... 41

Figure 10. Room in the Mesdag house, 1915. ... 43

Figure 11. Eighteenth-century helmet (hwm0552) that was later decorated with an incised silver dragon motif... 49

Figure 12. Mesdag’s studio. ... 50

Figure 13. Count Bardi portrayed as a samurai... 56

Figure 14. The Bardi collection in Palazza Vendramin Calergi. ... 58

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Acknowledgements

The writing of this thesis has taken me through many times and places both figuratively and literally. I enjoyed the chance to research the movement of cultural objects from East Asia to Europe over an almost fifty year period straddling the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I feel very fortunate to have been able to spend a year and a half on this thesis and to have had the opportunity to visit my case study collections in Italy and the Netherlands. I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Bram Kempers of the University of Amsterdam, whose patience is only matched by his thoughtful consideration of my work. His insightful critique helped me to focus my writing while encouraging me in the direction of my research. To my second reader, Charlotte van Rappard-Boon with her years of experience working with Japanese collections in the Netherlands, I would like to give thanks for her enthusiasm for my research and for her feedback.

I am very grateful for the assistance I received from the institutions which house the collections of my case studies; Museum Volkenkunde where I did my internship, the

librarians at the Van Gogh Museum Library who helped me access some hard-to-find sources, and in particular to Claudio Carello, librarian at MUDEC, who directed me to some

invaluable resources during my short time in Milan. I appreciate all the support from my family and friends; especially to Irem, Shirin and Valeria who inspired me at the beginning of my research, and to Julie and Robin who gave me the encouragement I needed to finish.

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Introduction

The cultural heritage of Japan holds a unique place in cultural histories. Japanese art history is often taught as the non-European component of art history courses due to its influence during the late nineteenth century. The cultural anthropology of Japan lacks the overt colonial context that taints research into many other cultures. Japanese cultural heritage has the most variety of representation in museums in Europe. Japanese material culture can be displayed in art museums alongside the canon of European art history, in ethnological museums with various cultures from around the world, or in museums dedicated specifically to Asian art and culture. Collection histories are particularly interesting for this subject, because the

motivations of the original collectors, and subsequent museum management, can show the trends and vagaries of the representation of Japanese culture.

The first direct contact between Europe and Japan was in the sixteenth century with the arrival of the Portuguese in 1543. Indirect contact had existed before through the Silk Road, but knowledge of the country and culture was scarce in comparison with that of

continental Asia. The Portuguese exported crafts and art objects along with raw materials. In the seventeenth century, the Dutch became the sole European traders with Japan, and the fall of the Ming Dynasty in China led to the disruption of Sino-European trade. This was taken advantage of by the Dutch and Japanese with the production of export porcelain and lacquerware to the European market. This first craze for things oriental led to attempts at reproduction through Delftware and the technique of ‘japanning,’ though these efforts did not offset the demand for Japanese products. Throughout the eighteenth century, porcelain and lacquered furnishings became de rigueur for grand houses, however in this period Chinese kilns and production centres had regained their strength and Japanese exports declined. Such objects for domestic ornamentation were associated with China and the fashion for oriental design became known as chinoiserie.

The pendulum of taste swung away from chinoiserie by the mid-nineteenth century, with Neoclassicism and Romanticism replacing such Rococo-associated styles. The prestige of China was also devalued politically and economically through its defeat in the Opium Wars (1839-1842 and 1856-1860). Chinese and Japanese decorative objects continued to be imported in the name of ornamentation. In the rest of the world, objects of everyday life and of traditional culture were being collected first by missionaries, and then later by naturalists who collected manmade objects along with specimens from the natural world. In the

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4 philosophies of the Enlightenment, and ethnology developed as a discipline which was

closely tied to the ethnographic collections formed by European explorers of newly-accessible lands.

This is the historical context leading up to the opening of Japan to diplomatic and trade relations with the USA and European states in the 1850s. The sudden international influence brought about domestic political changes, with political power being restored to the emperor and the feudal system replaced by a centralized government. During the reign of the Meiji emperor (1868-1912), economic and artistic exports increased, and ethnographic study occurred mainly through published travel diaries and collections formed by visitors. Artistic exports brought on an obsession with Japanese designs and patterns, known as Japonism. This fascination influenced the artistic avant-garde, as well as theatre and garden design. The cultural context, in both scientific and artistic circles, influenced collection interests and reception of Japanese material culture.

A look at the museums in which Japanese material culture is present in Europe today, shows great variation in the type of museum, and yet there can be much overlap in terms of content. During this sudden influx of Japanese material culture, how was it represented in European museums of ethnography and art? How does this representation compare to that of collections from other East Asian cultures? To what extent did contemporary socio-political contexts influence the formation and musealization of four case study collections? How were collecting practices motivated by aesthetic or ethnographic interest? What patterns of

musealization emerged during this time of unprecedented access to Japan? In particular, what was the rationale for the division of Japanese material culture into art or ethnography? The focus here is on Japanese culture, but the contextualization of Japan in relation to China and Korea is necessary to avoid Japanese exceptionalism. Japanese material culture is often part of larger East Asian collections, whether in an art or ethnographic context.

Through examination of the histories of the collectors, display and musealization of certain case study institutions, it will be attempted to situate Japanese cultural heritage within the contexts of East Asian collections in European museums of ethnography and art. The composition and display of the chosen collections will be analysed using literary sources and images, and contextualized through the investigation of the political and social backgrounds of the Asian and European countries involved. The approach is historical, which focuses on the empirical evidence available, and from which the theoretical framework is based. It is necessary to acknowledge and engage with the post-colonial discourses that shape present historical interpretations of Europe’s dealings with other cultures. The shadow of Orientalism

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5 hangs over any attempt to analyse relations between Europe and cultures situated (but not limited) to its East. This research is orientalist in nature because the focus is not on the history or meaning of objects within Japanese culture, but on how they were received and treated in Europe. Artistic re-imaginings of Japanese culture will not be dealt with here, but the reception and construction of Asian cultural identities through exhibition and display is a significant part of the collection process.

Edward Said’s seminal book Orientalism (1979) explored the colonial and imperial subtext of Western academic studies and artistic interest in the East. The Orient described in Said’s book encompassed the Islamic world of the Middle East and North Africa. In the decades since, his ideas have been extended to refer to all of Asia and beyond to draw attention to the dichotomy between the West as the observer, and ‘the rest’ as the observed. Through the prism of Orientalism, the observed, the observer and the subtleties in their interrelation can be better explored. It is in this way that with the examination of the political, economic and cultural context of the collectors and the objects, we can find the influence of colonial perspectives and self-orientalization in the relations between the collectors and collected.

Orientalism when applied to Japan requires recognition of the context which differentiates it from the original Middle Eastern ‘Orient’ analysed by Said. There are important distinctions to be made between the reception of the cultures of colonized lands in the Middle East and Southern Asia, to those in East Asia without the overt colonial context. While it could be argued that both colonialism and imperialism reflect the same mind-set of domination and superiority, the nuances in power relations have a significant effect. In this regard, MacKenzie responded to Said’s Orientalism in his own publication Orientalism (1995), by cautioning against a similar ‘Occidentalist’ view of Western culture as an exclusively imperialist, exploitative force against an oppressed and impotent Orient. The concept of Orientalism is a tool to acknowledge the power-imbalances and the implicit sense of superiority that characterizes Western interaction with the East. Within this concept, the nuances of particular East-West relations should be recognized and explored.

The different context of Japan does not entail exceptionalism, but instead should reinforce the fact that the Orient of Orientalism is also not a monolith. Japonism is notable for its early acknowledgement of a preoccupation with a particular discrete Asian culture. While ‘chinoiserie’ referred to a taste for decoration in a delicate Chinese or generally Asian style, it lacked the deeper interest in the culture of origin that characterized Japonism. The popularity of this term should not eclipse the fact, however, that objects from other Eastern cultures

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6 were being collected in a similar manner, from Middle Eastern ceramics to Southeast Asian sculptures. Japonism is associated with the art world, and refers to the Western inspiration from Japan in artistic production, and in the collection of Japanese objects. The scope of this study does not include Japonist art, however insightful that can be to the Western perception of Japan. It focuses on the collections of Japanese objects that were formed in Europe, and what these can illustrate about the relationship between the collectors and the collected. Japonism is often described as the craze for all things Japanese, and this study explores that idea through the concepts of aesthetics and ethnography as motivations for collecting.

These key concepts are born from the two most common types of museums in which Japanese material culture can be found in Europe today. Art museums collect objects of artistic production for aesthetic appreciation. Ethnographic and ethnological museums collect a wide variety of objects designed for various purposes in order to convey information about a particular culture. The motivations behind the collecting practices of the museums or first collectors can be analysed through these concepts as a way to track the representation of the material collected. Aesthetics is broader than art as a concept, which is necessary to explore late nineteenth century collecting in Europe, when the Arts and Crafts Movement was attempting to bridge the divide between objects produced for art's sake and those for an ornamental or decorative function. Through aesthetics, collectors could appreciate only the physical aspects of objects, in the absence of contextual information such as its function or meaning.

Ethnography is the description of the culture of a particular group of people, and it involves the research method of fieldwork to give empirical data. Ethnology can encompass ethnography as it studies and compares groups of peoples. Museums designated ethnographic or ethnological are often in practice interchangeable, as the museums can, through research and exhibition, practice both ethnography and ethnology. In The Poetics and the Politics of

Exhibiting Other Cultures (1997), Lidchi explores the idea of an ethnographic museum. The

disciplines of ethnography and ethnology come under the science of anthropology, but those disciplines grew out of ethnographic and ethnological collections in museums in the

nineteenth century. Interest in other cultures brought together ethnographic collections before the discipline was formalized. Ethnography has an association with the indigenous cultures of Asia, Australia, Africa and the Americas, due to the collections formed from European exploration and colonization of these areas in the nineteenth century. The concept of ethnographic interests provides a foil for aesthetic interests when examining the creation of the collections in the case studies. As a contrast and complement to the appreciation of

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7 material culture purely for its physical characteristics, ethnographic interest can show how the understanding of the culture of origin played a part in an object's selection and

representation. Focusing on ethnography as a concept allows for greater emphasis on the Japanese collections, but ethnological interest is also a factor for collections which contain objects of multiple cultures.

The crux of this research looks into the European perception of Japanese cultural heritage, however, it is imperative to locate this focus within the East Asian context. As will be seen from collection analyses, Japanese objects usually formed only part of a collection, often including other Asian cultural heritage. Neighbouring cultures were often present, and it is significant to note whether the connections in the collection come from original ties in Asia, or were created in Europe through Orientalist perspectives. The second half of the nineteenth century brought enormous changes to the historic relationships between Japan, China and Korea, and it should be borne in mind that these changes can be found in Western perceptions of Asia at the time. During the Meiji period, the Qing dynasty of China, weakened by the Opium Wars was attempting to modernize during the Self-Strengthening Movement. However, its defeat in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 further weakened it and led to the establishment of a Republic and the abdication of the last Qing emperor in 1912. The Joseon dynasty of Korea was caught between its traditional status as a tributary state of the Chinese Empire, and the new-found international influence of the modernized Japanese Empire.

The temporal scope of the Meiji period for this study allows for the focus on

collections formed when Japan became accessible to many Europeans. During this time the new Japanese government was actively recruiting foreign professionals to industrialize its economy and introduce new technology, and it was also promoting its manufactures abroad through international exhibitions. Over this forty-four year reign, much changed politically, economically and culturally, but the export and collection of Japanese art and artefacts continued steadily until the First World War. The case studies are taken from the Netherlands and Italy, countries on the periphery of the economic might of Britain and the cradle of Japonism in Paris. The United States was a major player culturally and diplomatically in Japan’s foreign relations, however by focusing on collections outside the major centres of Japanese interest, the strongest currents of thought about Japanese material culture can be identified.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Netherlands was still the only European power with access to acquire Japanese (and Korean) objects directly. The

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8 the century in the National Museum of Ethnography in Leiden. By then, the Netherlands no longer had the European monopoly on Japanese goods and was focusing on extending its colonies in Southeast Asia. In contrast, at the end of the nineteenth century, collectors of newly-unified Italy, joined the rest of Europe in collecting artefacts and objets d'art from East Asia, such as those that were added to the Non-European Collections in Milan.

The Japanese collections of certain collectors were eventually formed into individual museums. A relatively unknown private Asian collection is contained within the Mesdag Collection in The Hague, a museum which is most known for Mesdag’s collection of nineteenth-century European painting. In Venice, the collection of Count Bardi of Bourbon which today forms the Museum of Oriental Art, was the result of a round-the-world trip. After his death it was bought by the state to become an art museum. Studying the modus operandi of these amateur collectors, with no scholarly or professional connection to Japan, can provide some insight into general practices of European collectors of Asian artefacts during the Meiji era.

One of these case studies alone could be analysed for its representation of Japanese culture by art or ethnography, and as will be seen, the distinction between the two areas of interest was not definite. The purpose of the examination of four case studies from four cities is to establish patterns of collection and musealization in a broad sense. This breadth

necessitates an overview of the collections, based on the research that has already been carried out, in order to build up a larger picture of collection trends in the time period and places in question. The chapters are arranged in an approximate chronological order based on their musealization. The Japanese works acquired by the National Museum of Ethnography in Leiden were added to the longest-standing museum. The Non-European Collections in Milan and the Mesdag Collection were compiled with the intent to be publically displayed in newly-established museums. The Bardi collection, on the other hand, had a much slower

musealization process, becoming its own museum only in the 1920s, yet parts being sold in the decades prior to enrich other museum collections.

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Chapter 1: Leiden – International Exhibitions

The National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden today contains objects from five continents, but it was born from collections of the first half of the nineteenth century with a focus on East Asia, as the National Museum of Ethnography. These founding pre-Meiji collections had a decisive role in later acquisition policies, so it is worthwhile to evaluate them briefly in order to contextualize the Meiji-era additions to a historically rich collection. It also serves to give a background in the general European context. Since the seventeenth century, porcelain,

lacquerware and silk were imported from East Asia to the Netherlands by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and then on to the rest of Europe for use in furnishing and fashion. In addition to this trade in luxury goods, the direct personal connections between buyers at home and traders in Asia created the basis for a scholarly interest in those cultures.

The museum is now noted for its extensive and rich Japanese collection, but the oldest collection is Chinese. This eighteenth century collection contains more than the ceramics and lacquerware which might place it in the category of chinoiserie. The jurist Jean Theodore Royer from The Hague (1737-1807) was a sinologist, as well as an antiquarian and print collector, and his erudition on Chinese culture gave his collection a scholastic disposition in comparison to other collections of Asian objects. He collected works in metal, writing implements, paintings, musical instruments, clothes, medicines and household objects. The ceramics and lacquerware also included objects of Japanese origin, so despite scholarly knowledge, there may not have been a hard distinction between the cultures. His object collection was complemented by his library of Chinese books and contemporary prints and paintings of China, which he mostly procured through contacts on the Dutch Trading Post in Canton. After his death, his collection was given to the first King of the Netherlands, William I. It was known as the Cabinet of Chinese Rarities in 1816 and became the Royal Cabinet of Rarities in 1823 with the addition of other collections and relocation to the Mauritshuis. When the Royal Cabinet of Rarities was closed, much of the Royer collection went to the then Museum of Ethnography, but parts were sent to the Rijksmuseum, and also given in trades for other objects.1

Another collector, later than Royer, is considered to be the founder of the museum as an ethnographical institution. Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866) was a German doctor who worked on the Dutch Trading Post of Dejima, Japan, from 1823-1829. He collected local

1_{Rudolf Effert, Royal cabinets and auxiliary branches: origins of the National Museum of Ethnology, 1816-1883}

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10 flora and fauna as well as ethnographic objects, and the botanical and zoological collections were given to museums of their respective disciplines. His studies and collections reflect the ideals of the Enlightenment, with knowledge being pursued across what would later become separate disciplines. His ethnographic collection is notable for his attempt at systematic classification in the manner of botany and zoology. The ethnographic collection of approximately 5,000 objects which he amassed in Japan during these years remains very important today, as it was one of only a few Dutch collections of contemporary Edo-period objects.

By 1832, Von Siebold’s collection was on public display in his house in Leiden and was arguably the world’s earliest collection to be organised ethnographically.2 The collection was divided into four classes - scientific objects, objects of culture and industry, models and ethnographic objects from other areas. The scientific class contained printed books and manuscripts, drawings and paintings, and coins and medals. Objects of culture and industry included raw materials, products made from a single material, and products made from combinations of materials. The models showed buildings, furniture, tools and instruments. Many of the objects in the collection were specifically commissioned by Von Siebold to record aspects of Japanese material culture, such as the models of Japanese houses which included all the implements and furniture used in daily life. The painter Kawahara Keiga made documentary images of local scenes and objects which was included in the collection, but also classed separately from the physical objects.

The collection was displayed in Leiden based on Von Siebold’s classification system, and this approach was a departure in how collections from outside Europe had been

traditionally displayed for their exoticism and beauty. An intermediate system did exist in the Royal Cabinet of Rarities in The Hague. Formed in 1816, it incorporated the collections of Jan Cock Blomhoff (on Dejima 1813-1823) and Johannes Frederik van Overmeer Fisscher (on Dejima 1819-1830) into its displays of European examples of crafts and rarities.

Blomhoff and Fisscher lived on Dejima before or at the same time as Von Siebold, and both had made catalogues of their collections in order for them to be purchased by the King for the Cabinet. Von Siebold may have been influenced by their systems of classifying objects by material, function and social context.

2_{However by today’s standards Von Siebold’s classification system was not purely anthropological. See Ken}

Vos, “The Composition of the Siebold Collection in the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden,” Senri

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11 These three collections remain important for research into early-nineteenth-century Japan, particularly of the Bunsei Era (1818-1830), and continue to be used for historical research today by Japanese scholars. They are also a legacy of the cultural policies at the commencement of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, as the collections of Blomhoff and Fisscher were acquired, not out of personal interest, but on the request of the head of state. Even Von Siebold’s collection, though a private endeavour, was acquired with the idea of eventually being united with the other two collections, and becoming a national ethnographic museum.3 The attention given to studies of Japan in particular at this time is surprising in the context of Dutch colonial expansion in the Indonesian archipelago with the 1800

nationalization of the Dutch East India Company. However, it can be understood as an expression of national pride as the only European country with a trade link to Japan.

In 1838 Von Siebold reached an agreement with the Dutch State to nationalize his collection, and by 1859 when he returned to Japan, it was known as the Rijks Japans Museum Von Siebold (National Japanese Museum Von Siebold).4_{In that same year, the Indonesian} ethnographic collection of Salomon Müller was added to the Siebold collection.5_The museum was renamed in 1862 as the Rijks Ethnografisch Museum (National Museum of Ethnography), and two years later the Indonesian collection of the Royal Academy in Delft was added. From then on, the museum was more closely connected to Leiden University, whose curators focused their interests on objects from the colonies. Despite its academic ties, the museum was not yet considered a scientific institution in the same way as the National Museum of Natural History.6

It was not the only ethnographic museum in the Netherlands; in 1861 the zoological society Natura Artis Magistra in Amsterdam opened a museum for its ethnographical collections, in 1871 the Colonial Museum opened in Haarlem, and in 1885 the Museum of Geography and Ethnology opened in Rotterdam. These private or civic museums focused mainly on Dutch colonial territories, and despite the Leiden museum’s colonial acquisitions, it remained distinguished by its Japanese collection.

Since the departure of Von Siebold in 1859, management of the museum was

undertaken by Conradus Leemans, director of the National Museum of Antiquities. When, in 1860, 29 crates arrived in the Netherlands from the shogun of Japan, Leemans advised on the

3_{Von Siebold submitted his first proposal for the establishment of an ethnographic museum in 1834. See}

Effert, Royal cabinets, 152.

4_{H.S. van der Straaten, “Van testament tot ‘Volkenkunde,’” Verre naasten naderbij 3, no. 1 (1969): 22.} 5_{Effert, Royal cabinets, 176.}

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12 distribution of the contents of the crates, and they were exhibited in Leiden’s town

auditorium as objects of art and industry. The crates contained silk room screens, silks, porcelain and paper. Some of the screens and porcelain were taken directly into the museum, while samples were taken of the silks for display, and the paper and rest of the silk could be used for restorative and decorative purposes.7_{In addition to these purposes within the} museum itself, the objects were a lucrative asset for barter trade with other museums in Europe. Although the Meiji period brought about an increase in the exploitation of Japanese artistic and industrial products as a diplomatic tool, it should be kept in mind that this was also the case during the Bakumatsu, or end of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1853-1867).

Japan first actively participated in an International Exhibition in 1867 at the Paris Exposition Universelle. This was a reaction to the 1862 London International Exhibition which was visited by the First Japanese Embassy to Europe. Rutherford Alcock, the first British diplomatic representative to Japan, had arranged the Japanese section, and Takashima Yūkei lamented the inclusion of such pre-industrial products as paper lanterns and umbrellas, and straw raincoats and shoes.8_{A comparison between the objects sent to the Netherlands in} 1860 and the reaction to those displayed in London in 1862, shows that there were standards in Japan of high quality and low quality crafts. The Meiji government would later build upon the shogunate's efforts to represent its material culture as equal to that of European cultures, but unique rather than simply curious.

Ten years after the Meiji Restoration, in August 1878, the Japanese minister

Matsuoka visited the museum in Leiden and promised to send objects from the Paris World's Fair of that year. From December of that year until January of the following, 70 crates of mainly industrial products and raw materials arrived. The majority of the acquisitions until 1883 were donations. During Leeman's time, the collection grew by 5,000 to 34,000 total in 1883. The majority of the collection was still from the Far East with 14,000 objects from Japan and China, followed by 12,000 from Indonesia. Collections from New Guinea and the South Seas contained 2,000 objects, and there were also 700 objects from Suriname.

In 1883 the Royal Cabinet of Rarities in the Mauritshuis was finally closed due to lack of sufficient space and funds for upkeep. The collections were split and sent to various

museums in the Netherlands, with objects deemed to be ethnographic sent to the Museum of

7_{Effert, Royal cabinets, 192-3.}

8_{Angus Lockyer, “Japan at the Exhibition, 1867-1877: From Representation to Practice,” Senri Ethnological}

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13 Ethnography, and those with artistic value to what would become the Rijksmuseum.9_Objects were also sent to the Museum of Natural History, The Museum of Antiquities, the National Mineral-Geological Museum, and the National Herbarium, showing that by this time

academic disciplines had shaped museums, and the universalist approach of Kunstkabinetten was no longer acceptable. The division of the collection brought up the same issues that are at the heart of this thesis - what is art and what is ethnography? In 1877 Leemans had employed japanologist Lindor Serrurier as conservator, who then took over as director of the museum in 1880. David van der Kellen, who together with Serrieur was in charge of the division of the collection, wrote that they had come to the agreement that ethnographic objects were those “which could effectively increase the knowledge of the morals, the customs, the character, etc., etc., of the peoples living outside of Europe, with the exception of the objects which belong more directly to the fields of art and industrial arts.”10

This definition could not adequately inform the division, and it was a matter of personal and professional negotiations to arrange the split. Serrurier drew up the initial classification to which Van der Kellen made some amendments. The Fisscher collection was kept mostly intact and sent to Leiden, as was the majority of the Blomhoff collection.

Japanese objects which showed Dutch influence, such as a writing desk and a lacquer case for a Dutch pipe, were not considered representative of Japanese culture. Despite considering the Blomhoff collection very important ethnographically, Serrurier set apart certain objects from the Blomhoff collection as being more suited for a museum of industrial arts, such as items from the categories of sculpture, leatherwork, woodwork, stonework, ceramics, lacquerware and basketry. In total, approximately 7,100 objects from the Royal Cabinet were transferred to the Museum of Ethnography.11

1883 continued to be an important year of Japanese acquisitions, thanks to the

International Colonial and Export Exhibition which took place in Amsterdam over the course of six months. This was the first international exposition to have an explicitly colonial focus, and to emphasize the trade rather than manufacture of industrial products.12 Whereas

previous international expositions had a universal approach to the subjects of art, industry and technology, the exhibition in Amsterdam looked specifically at how the colonies could

contribute to European development. It was an international production from the beginning

9_{Marika Keblusek, Japansch magazijn: Japanse kunst en cultuur in 19de-eeuws Den Haag, (Leiden: Hotei Pub.,}

2000), 16.

10_{Effert, Royal cabinets, 236.} 11_{Effert, Royal cabinets, 232-235.}

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14 when the idea was proposed to the king and important figures in Amsterdam by the

Frenchman Edouard Agostini in 1880. Agostini had been involved in the Paris World’s Fair in 1878, and he became the chief commissioner of the Amsterdam Exhibition. The city council granted the site of museum square as the location of the exhibition. The Rijksmuseum was still undergoing construction, and this building was also used as an exhibition location.

This exhibition was part of the trend of International Exhibitions in the second half of the nineteenth century, beginning with the 1851 Great Exhibition in London. The

phenomenon was born out of the national exhibitions held in France in the first half of the century, and grew to enormous importance as a way to exhibit products of industrialization and colonization. In ‘Orientalism and the Exhibitionary Culture,’ Timothy Mitchell cites world exhibitions as one of the methods through which Orientalist reality was constructed.13 National identity was constructed and reinforced through the exhibition of physical

manifestations of its economic and social sectors, and in opposition to the “otherness” of the non-Western world exhibited there. The orderliness of the exhibition reflected the efforts of the colonial powers to organize the world according to their own systems.

Japan was present at the first International Exhibition in London before it was unofficially opened to the West with the arrival of Commodore Perry’s ships in 1853, but little attention was paid to the Japanese objects displayed as part of the Chinese section.14_By contrast, the Japan exhibit assembled by the British consul Rutherford Alcock attracted a lot of attention at the 1862 World Fair in London. The political and economic changes in Japanese society can be outlined through the changing authorities and methods of exhibition at the World's Fairs. In 1867, a year before the Meiji Restoration, Japan was represented not only by the Tokugawa shogunate, but also by the Satsuma and Tosa domains. This was an indicator of the instability of the shogunal government in these years, and undermined the shogun's status internationally.

By the 1878 exhibition in Paris, the Meiji government had strong control over its cultural and industrial representation. Japan participated as an attempt to both situate itself on the same political level as other European and American powers and to advertise the wares produced by its newly-industrialized economy. From 1872, exhibitions of Japanese products aimed at foreigners were held at Buddhist temples in Kyoto, as well as at the Imperial Palace. After the success of the 1873 Vienna’s World Fair, the Kiritsu Kōsho Kaisha was set up by

13_{Timothy Mitchell, “Orientalism and the exhibitionary order,” in Colonialism and culture, ed. Nicholas B. Dirks}

(Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1992), 289-318.

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15 the government to be able to sell the products displayed there. It then began to organize the production of crafts and artworks for export, and under the direction of its vice-president Wakai Kenzaburō, its products were displayed at the 1878 exhibition to great acclaim. The zenith of admiration for Japan came at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris, with the exhibition of artworks from the Imperial collections. In this exhibition Europeans could see paintings and sculpture that revealed the long tradition of Japanese art, older than had been thought. This discovery demonstrated that Japan had a classical art tradition which fulfilled Western expectations of ‘fine art.’ In his Souvenirs thirty years later, journalist and collector Raymond Koechlin lamented that this was “the opportunity to appreciate [Japan’s] treasures as never before and, as it happens, never since.”15

The participation of Japan at the 1883 exhibition was not as prominent as in the exhibitions previously mentioned, and its representation was mostly due to the presence of collections of European art dealers and collectors. The Dutch government was involved in inviting other states to participate in the exhibition. The guest-nations with the largest presence were Belgium, France and Germany, but a great many large and small nations participated, from the United States to Russia, and Uruguay to the Transvaal (see Figs. 1 and 2). The Chinese and Japanese sections were of comparable size or larger than many of those belonging to the other participants. There were also bazaars selling Eastern goods – one Turkish, one Chinese and two Japanese. China had official representatives, with a three-man delegation present at the Exhibition opening, who stayed in Amsterdam for several weeks.16 The Chinese ambassador in Berlin, Li Fong Pao had a room reserved in the Chinese house exhibited within the grounds, not as part of the exhibition but as a mark of honour.17

15_{Max Put, Philippe Sichel, and Raymond Koechlin, Plunder and pleasure: Japanese art in the West, 1860-1930,}

(Leiden: Hotei Pub, 2000), 88.

16_{Ileen Montijn, Kermis van Koophandel: de Amsterdamse wereldtentoonstelling van 1883, (Bussum: Van}

Holkema & Warendord, 1883), 14.

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16 Figure 1. Map of the 1883 International Exhibition grounds.

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17 Figure 2. Legend of Exhibition grounds map.

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18 The representations of autonomous states and of protectorates and colonies of other European participants were very different to the representations of the Dutch colonies. These latter were represented through ‘kampong’ and colonial parks constructed for the indigenous people from the West and East Indies. This open-air museum of furnished houses from

different parts of Indonesia was displayed after the Exhibition at the Museum of Ethnography. The 1878 Exposition Universelle in Paris had contained a park beside the exhibition hall, where spectators could ‘visit’ various, faraway lands, such as Italy, Egypt and China. In the park, Japan had exhibited a teahouse constructed with imported materials, where three geisha sat on display to the public. At the 1883 exhibition, only the Dutch colonies were exhibited in such a manner. This colonial practice grew more common in International Exhibitions in the early twentieth century, and was engaged in by Japan as a colonial power. At the 1904 St Louis World Fair, Japan exhibited Ainu people from the northernmost island of Hokkaido, which under the Meiji government was developed and colonized as a way to prevent the encroachment of Russia through Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.

European Japanese collections were displayed in an ethnographic exhibition in the unfinished building of the Rijksmuseum on the north of the square. This was also the location of displays of antique Dutch furniture and crafts in period rooms, as befitting the future national museum. The central court housed the ethnographic exhibition of mostly international loans, which was organised by Serrurier. The exhibition as planned was envisaged with five sections divided into British India and Persia (I), Hindu and Buddhist objects (II), China and Japan (III), historic ethnographic collections (IV) and the comparative ethnology collection of Augustus Pitt Rivers (V). In fact, not all the sections could be realized, because some of the international lenders reneged, and so sections II and IV lacked the

important collections of Belgian and French lenders (including Émile Guimet). The exhibition did receive generous loans from the South Kensington Museum and from Pitt Rivers, which demonstrates the overlap between design and archaeology in many ethnographic displays.

Japan may have had some influence over the presentation of its culture in the

ethnographic exhibition. In the foreword of his catalogue, Serrurier thanked a Mr Otsoeka, a member of the Japanese commission of the International Exhibition.18 It is unclear if there were other national commissions for the exhibition, but it is clear from Serrurier’s

acknowledgements that Mr Otsoeka was the only representative of a culture displayed

18_{Lindor Serrurier, Catalogus der ethnographische afdeeling van de internationale Koloniale en uitvoerhandel}

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19 ethnographically to be personally thanked. Within the catalogue entries however, the

references are entirely to Western scholars. The catalogue of the Guimet Museum was referenced with respect to the Buddhist objects on display. This museum of religions, opened in Lyon in 1879, was very influential in collecting trends at the end of the nineteenth century. The study of religious objects added a serious dimension to Asian collections, especially as the antiquity of the religion-based cultures was gradually understood through archaeological finds in the early twentieth century.

The Chinese and Japanese objects in Section III came from dealers and private collectors. The private collections mainly consisted of small objects that were displayed in cabinets; lacquered boxes, Satsuma stoneware, weapons, masks, overglazed vases, netsuke and incense burners. Two of the well-known collectors were Anthonius Franciscus Bauduin from The Hague who had been a professor of medicine in Japan between 1863-1870, and Johan Wilhelm van Lansberge from Brummen who was Governor-general of the Dutch East Indies from 1875 to 1881. The main dealers exhibiting were Dirk Boer of The Hague, who displayed thirty-six objects and Siegfried Bing of Paris, who displayed six. In these instances, the exhibited objects were large Buddha sculptures and temple decorations, dating mostly from the nineteenth century. Boer’s submission included six bronze temple lanterns, four bronze elephants surmounted by pagodas, seven life-size bronze Buddha statues, ten smaller kannon statues, two gilt wooden temple images, a Chinese-style bronze sculpture of a warrior, two bronze incense burners in the form of shishi (mythical lion-dogs), and a bronze incense burner with a cow as a base (see Figs. 3 and 4).

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20 Figure 4. Selection of objects bought from Dirk Boer in 1883. From top left, clockwise: bronze temple lantern

(RV-417-104b), bronze elephant surmounted by a pagoda (RV-417-103a), bronze Kannon statuette (RV-417-93), bronze statue of Shozen doji (RV-417-100), bronze Shishi incense burner (RV-417-107), bronze incense holder in the shape of a cow

(RV-417-105-a, RV-417-105-b).

This exhibition did not attract as many visitors as was hoped, but it was very

important for the National Ethnographic Museum in its acquisitions of Japanese and Chinese objects. The dealers’ exhibits in the court of the exhibition were evidently for sale, with each article having its own label which included a price. The museum was particularly interested in the Buddhist sculptures on offer from the dealers, as their collections lacked many religious objects. Although the Japanese collections were rich with many aspects of local culture, the export of religious objects had been forbidden by the Tokugawa government and so were unavailable to those early collectors. The museum was aware of the great Buddhist collections in France collected recently by Guimet and Henri Cernuschi. Guimet, whose museum was still based in Lyon at this time, had been invited to display his collection at the exposition, but it did not come to pass.

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21 The reason for this comparative influx of Buddhist objects has much to do with the political and social changes happening in Japan during the early Meiji period. With the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the Kami and Buddhas Separation Order was enacted to separate what had heretofore been the syncretic religions of native Shinto belief and Buddhism. Since the introduction of Buddhism in the sixth century, there had been tendencies to view the religion with suspicion and xenophobia. Throughout the centuries, Buddhism and kami worship had become amalgamated, with shrines located in temples and vice versa. The order to separate the two belief systems was done to further demarcate the new government. Buddhism had become associated with the Tokugawa shogunate through the Edo period, and the legend of the emperor’s lineage made him a descendant of a kami, so State Shinto was to become the main religion.

Though the order did not call for the closure of temples and the destruction of Buddhist property, it did fuel the violent activities of the haibutsu kishaku anti-Buddhist movement. Until about 1874, tens of thousands of Buddhist temples were closed, and its valuable objects destroyed, removed or sold. In 1871, a few years after the order, the government already recognized the danger to the Japanese identity in the eradication of centuries of Buddhist heritage, and initiated a Plan for the Preservation of Ancient Artefacts, which called for temples, shrines and the newly created prefectures taking over from the old feudal domains, to compile lists of important cultural objects. In the 1880s and 1890s the government was providing funds to temples as well as shrines for their preservation, culminating in the 1897 Ancient Temples and Shrines Preservation Law.19

The 1870s were an opportune time for the acquisition of Japanese Buddhist objects, which was taken advantage of by Henri Cernuschi on his voyage in 1871, and by Émile Guimet in 1876-1877. Objects were also bought by dealers in Japan and sold back to Europe, as was likely the case with the Buddha statues exhibited by Bing in the 1883 Exhibition. Three of the statues originated from the mausoleum of the Tokugawa shogun in Zōjōji Temple.20 These statues were cast in 1648 and donated to the temple by a couple in the Province of Ise. The availability of these statues is very significant, as it represents the end of the influence and importance of the culture associated with the previous government. These statues were likely bought in Japan by Heinrich von Siebold, the son of Philipp Franz von Siebold. Heinrich was working in Japan as an interpreter for the Austrian Embassy and as a

19_{Kate Fitz Gibbon, Who owns the past ?: cultural policy, cultural property, and the law, (New Brunswick, N.J.:}

Rutgers University Press, 2007), 331.

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22 collector for museums in Vienna. The Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna acquired part of the interior of the temple from Heinrich von Siebold, so it is likely then that Bing acquired the Buddha statues from him.21_{Dirk Boer of The Hague probably purchased his Buddha} statues and temple decorations via intermediary dealers, as he himself never travelled to Japan.

Figure 5. Buddhas purchased from Bing in 1883. From top left, clockwise: Ichiji Kinrin (RV-418-2), Yakushi Nyorai (RV-418-1), Ichiji Kinrin (RV-418-4), Dainichi Nyorai (RV-418-5). The last three are from the Tokugawa Mausoleum

in Zojoji, cast in 1648.

The Museum of Ethnography was keen to increase its collection of religious objects, but did not have the funds to purchase the objects on display independently. Serrurier approached the state for assistance to buy “such a beautiful and renowned collection of

21_{“Yakushi Nyorai, RV-418-1,” National Museum of World Cultures, accessed 20 March 2019,}

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23 Japanese ethnographic objects related to religion.”22_{The state agreed to provide an} interest-free loan of 10,000 guilders to purchase Boer’s Buddhist bronzes.23 _{A further 3,500 guilders} for Bing’s six bronzes was advanced by three friends of the museum; Abraham Carel

Wertheim (a banker and supporter of the arts), Victor de Stuers and Pierre Cuypers (both involved in the design and construction of the Rijksmuseum).24_{Two of the objects purchased} from Boer, a pair of bronze elephants surmounted by pagodas (see Fig. 4), may have been those seen by the French art dealer Philippe Sichel during his visit to Japan in 1874, which he described as “hideous,” perhaps explaining the lack of interest from French art dealers.25 The provenance of the Buddha statues from Bing was not completely understood until 1897, when Johann Schmeltz, conservator of the Japanese collection, became director. He was a friend of Justus Brinckmann of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, and he invited Brickmann's assistant Shinkichi Hara to Leiden in order to decipher the inscriptions which gave their dates.

From 1900 the Buddha group was displayed in the garden of the museum, where they became very popular with visitors. Notwithstanding some objects donated or bought from Boer later, the Buddha statues proved to be the last major acquisition for the Japanese collection.26_{The museum did receive significant donations for the Korean collection during} this time. The Blomhoff and Von Siebold collections contained the earliest Korean objects in Europe, bought or received as gifts from Korean traders or fishermen in Nagasaki. Nothing more entered the museum until the 1880s, with the acquisition of a collection of everyday objects such as clothes and accessories belonging to entomologist Alfred Otto Herz in 1885, the donation of a similar collection in 1886 from J. Rhein, an interpreter in Beijing, and who also donated a further collection of paintings in 1888. This was the same year of the receipt of a large collection containing objects of everyday life as well as of courtly life from Friedrich Kraus who assisted in the establishment of the Royal Korean Mint.27_{The Netherlands did not}

22_{“[Z]oo schoone en beroemde verzameling van Japansche ethnografische voorwerpen tot den godsdienst}

betrekkelijk.” Letter from the National Museum of Ethnography to the Minister of the Interior, September 1883. H. S. van der Straaten, “Beelden komen tot leven,” Verre naasten naderbij 3, no. 3 (1969): 67.

23_{This loan was repaid slowly through instalments over 15 years, due to continued problems with the}

museum's housing, and due to tensions between Serrurier and the state. Straaten, “Beelden komen tot leven,” 68.

24_{Keblusek, Japansch magazijn, 61.}

25_{RV-417-103a, RV-417-103b. See note 15 in Put et al., Plunder and pleasure, 50.}

26_{For prints: Gratama (1886), Brill of Leiden (1896), Wagner of Berlin (1901). For sword guards: Kleykamp}

(1901), Rex & Co. of Berlin (1901). Museum Volkenkunde Leiden, De Mens in Beeld: Verzamelde

Collectieprofielen, (2008), 79.

27_{Elmer Veldkamp, Kim Donghyon, and Nam Eunsil, The Korean collection of Museum Volkenkunde, (Seoul:}

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24 have much contact with Korea at this time, and so these additions were thanks to the

museum’s connections with German ethnographers.

In comparison to its neighbours, there is a dearth of information regarding the collecting of Korean artefacts, and it is often buried within discussions of Japanese or Chinese collections.28_{The ‘Hermit Kingdom’ eschewed almost all international contact,} restricting trade with Japan to the island of Tsushima and in Busan, and keeping a tributary state status in relation to China. With the waning influence of China in the region, Japan was the first foreign power to successfully compel Korea to agree to official diplomacy and trade in 1876. Korean ceramics were present at the 1878 Paris Exposition Universelle, but in the retrospective exhibition of Oriental ceramics as part of the collection of Wakai Kenzaburō. At the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle, Korea had its own pavilion, though it was then

organized by two Frenchmen. An observer, despite not holding the modern Korean ceramics in high regard, remarked on the very high esteem in which they were held by Japanese collectors.29_{The exhibit also contained mannequin displays of costumes and photographs of} modern streets with electrical wires and trams, adding an ethnographic element.

In the following decades the museum followed the other Dutch ethnographic

museums by increasing its holdings from the colonies and from underrepresented parts of the world. From 1903 to 1904 the large Hindu-Javanese statues from the National Museum of Antiquities were transferred to the National Museum of Ethnography, which distinguished its Dutch Indies collection, giving it a prominence that had heretofore been claimed by the Japanese collection. There was a lack of knowledge of the existence of ancient Japanese material culture, as there was in the rest of Europe, but there was also a disinterest in the fine arts of Japan. The division of the Cabinet of Rarities into art and ethnography defined the Japanese collection for the museum. The large Buddha statues were not bought as examples of Japanese sculpture, but as meaningful representations of Japanese religion. The purpose of this purchase should also be offset against its display outdoors in the garden; not an

ethnographic installation in the way of the East Indian kampong, with aesthetic echoes of a garden of classical sculpture.

The Japanese collections of the National Museum of Ethology in Leiden are an amalgamation of pre-Meiji collections with an ethnographic disposition and religious sculptures made available from the contemporary dissolution of Buddhist temples. The

28_{Raymond Koechlin collected Korean ceramics alongside Japanese before he began to collect Chinese. Put et}

al., Plunder and pleasure, 102.

29_{Paul Gers, Corée, 1900, retrieved 24-5-2018,}

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25 ethnographic museum was created directly out of the Von Siebold Japanese Museum, and to which similar collections were added, which had been previously displayed in a Cabinet of Rarities. This is the only case study in which ethnographic interests were the overt focus of the collections. As a museum of ethnography in the 1880s, the director was influenced by developments in France relating to the study of Asian religions, to then purchase a significant group of Japanese Buddhist statues. Although this acquisition is ethnographic in how it relates to religion, the description of the beauty of the sculptures and its display in a garden show that the museum was influenced by the general aesthetic interest in Japanese material culture at that time. The collections of the following case study are now also in an

ethnographic museum, but unlike those in Leiden, these come from a variety of private collections with mixed motivations.

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26

Chapter 2: Milan – Trade and Industry

The collections which today make up the Asian section of the Museo delle Culture (MUDEC) in Milan come from a variety of sources. Like the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, it is based upon multiple collections from multiple collectors. However in contrast to the delayed but steady progress of amalgamating non-European collections in the Netherlands, the creation of MUDEC comes from the gradual removal of ethnographic material from other museums.

MUDEC was opened in 2015 but the collections belong to the Raccolte Extra-europee (Non-European Collections) of Sforza Castle that were gathered together in 1900. It is these collections, formed and developed during the Meiji period, that will be examined. Today, the museum’s Japanese collection contains 1,574 objects and the Chinese collection 1,028. These overshadow the South-East Asian collection at 285 objects, but the single largest collection in the museum is the Pre-Colombian and Amerindian collection at 1,627 artefacts.

The numbers of these last two collections contrast with those of the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden due to their respective nations’ interest in these geographic regions. The Netherlands concentrated much of their scholarship on the cultures of the East Indies where colonial expansion was strongest, rather than in the West Indies and the Caribbean. Italy, or rather, Italians, had a stronger relationship with the emerging independent states in South America, which led to the scholarship and collecting of the indigenous cultures there.

The Non-European Collections are a civic collection that were first displayed together at Sforza Castle in 1901. The origins of these collections span the nineteenth century and derived from collections of artists, entrepreneurs, nobles and missionaries. The oldest

ethnographic collections came from museums of archaeology and natural history, some Asian artefacts entered the collections from an art museum that inherited the artefacts from an industrial exposition, and the most important collections of East Asian objects originate from the travel collections of wealthy businessmen. These three categories formed the

Non-European Collections.

Italy was unified fifty years after the foundation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, but the museums in Milan created in the aftermath were not national museums, nor was there an interest in the emerging field of ethnology. The Museum of Archaeology (Museo Patrio Archeologico) was founded in 1862 and the Natural History Museum (Museo di Storia Naturale) was moved to Palazzo Dugnani the year after. These museums bolstered the

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27 instead of the capital of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia. A focus on archaeology and natural history further established the longevity of the city.

Both of these museums had ethnographic sections, and these were the first category to contribute to the Non-European Collections of Milan. The ethnographic collection of artist Giuseppe Bossi was moved from the Pinacoteca di Brera to the Museum of Archaeology in 1864, and the Natural History Museum received the ethnographic collections of the Saint Calogero Seminar of Foreign Missions. The idea of including contemporary man-made objects from different cultures in museums to compare with non-extant ancient cultures and specimens from nature was common to many museums in Europe as a comparative practice, as was the case in Natura Artis Magistra in Amsterdam. This practice held on through to the twentieth century, and the last of the ethnographic collections of the Natural History Museum were moved to the Sforza Castle in 1929. When the Natural History Museum had been founded in 1838, it inherited the collections of Italian naturalists and universal collectors, with animal specimens, fossils, minerals and ethnographic artefacts combined. This interest in ethnography was quite early, comparable to the work and collections of Von Siebold. However in the second half of the century after the unification of the country, ethnography was studied and displayed mainly in the new national museums in Florence and Rome.

The ethnographic collections of the Natural History Museum were classed as artefacts of everyday life, not as works of art. In 1876 a large number of prehistoric and ethnographic objects were sent to Rome to become part of the National Museum of Prehistory and

Ethnography. By 1906 the ethnographic collection of the Natural History Museum contained 701 objects, including objects from India and China from the original missionary collection and later dispatches from Asia, as well as individual donations of objects from Japan.30_In 1882 the director of the museum placed the ethnographic collections in storage until it was eventually transferred to Sforza Castle. The previous director Emilio Cornalia had proposed the establishment of a separate ethnographic museum, and later Pompeo Castelfranco, the inspector of excavations and monuments in Milan, advocated for such a museum. Nothing became of these plans, however, and the ethnographic collections of the Museum of

Archaeology were placed in storage along with those of the Natural History Museum in 1887 and later brought to Sforza Castle. The Museum of Archaeology, a state-owned entity, and the ethnographic section remained state property while in the depots of the Natural History Museum, until it was officially given to the city in 1903.

30_{Pietro Amadini, Arti dell’Asia Orientale tra pubblico e privato: due raccolte esemplari. Dal 1870, cent’anni di}

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28 The second category of collections to form the Non-European Collections,

particularly of Asian objects, came from the museums which developed out of the 1874 Historic Exposition of Industrial Art (Esposizione Storica d’Arte Industriale) in Milan. At the 1873 International Exhibition in Vienna, Milan had won the most awards out of all the Italian cities present. The Italian Industrial Association decided that the following year an

international exhibition of “art at the service of industry” would be held in Milan. From this exhibition it was planned to establish a museum of industrial art, in the same way that the Orientalisches Museum was created to house exhibits from the International Exhibition in Vienna. On 4 July 1874 the Historic Exposition of Industrial Art was opened with the royal family in attendance. Approximately 200 works from Japan and China were on display at the exhibition. Unfortunately, the proposal for the creation of a museum of industrial art did not get the traction with the city that had been expected. Despite the presence of Japanese cultural objects at the Exposition, the cultural sphere in Milan was not entirely enthralled with

Japanese culture. According to the publication on the World’s Fair in Philadelphia in 1876, the Japanese still had not perfected their products, and were only selling some unrefined textiles.31

International Expositions were an effective means to promote national industry on an international scale, advertising industrial products, technology, arts and crafts. Conversely it was an opportunity to gain inspiration and knowledge from a broader range of cultures. The potential of these expositions was seen to best effect in the interaction between European and East Asian countries, particularly Japan. Indeed, the Meiji government commissioned

workshops to create ‘typical’ Japanese products, designed to appeal to the audiences of the expositions. As we have seen from the 1883 exhibition in Amsterdam, dealers were also present and allowed for the trading of Asian objects, influenced by the flourishing interest in Asia. China was the first East Asian country to take part in International Exhibitions, but due to domestic political instability, it did not concentrate as much effort on these events as did Japan. With International Exhibitions increasing in importance and extravagance from the 1870s until the twentieth century, Meiji Japan focused state resources on these events as a way to improve its diplomatic standing as well as develop its export industry.

The Municipal Museum of Art (Museo Artistico Municipale) was the successor of the Museum of Industrial Art (Museo d’Arte Industriale), which had been formed and managed

31_{“Il popolo giapponese deve ancora perfezionare le sue manifatture, e quando vi si proverà, non si curerà più}

di fabbricare certe coperte e tappeti che sono appesi vicino agli altri tessuti; questi prodotti grossolani sono tutti venduti, fatto questo che non torna gran che a lode degli acquisitori.” See note 5 in Kinkô: i bronzi

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29 by the Italian Industrial Association for the 1874 exposition. The Municipal Museum of Art was created in 1878 and inherited many of the exhibits from the exposition, including part of the Asian collection of Count Giovanni Battista Lucini Passalacqua which will be examined later. Other noble families of the region donated to the city, many having eighteenth-century Chinese and Japanese objects as household decorations. The catalogue of the new museum did not detail the Asian objects on exhibit at the earlier Exposition, perhaps because at that time these objects still officially belonged to the Museum of Industrial Art, but also the civic collections of Asian objects were not on display at the opening of the Municipal Museum of Art according to the lack of information in the catalogue.32

Many of the Asian collections which arrived in Milan during this time were related to the silk trade. The economy of Northern Italy had relied heavily on silk manufacturing since the mid-eighteenth century, but a century later, a silkworm blight endangered the industry. From 1855 until 1870, when Louis Pasteur introduced quarantine measures to prevent the spread of the disease among the silkworms, French and Italian merchants travelled to China and Japan each year to bring back healthy silkworms. This was an annual event throughout this period, as the silkworms, once brought to Europe, would eventually succumb to the disease, preventing reproduction and the continuation of the silkworm crop. Japan’s sericulture increased dramatically during this time, benefitting especially from China’s damaged industry as a result of the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864).

In addition to its domestic industry, Japan began producing silkworm seed to sell to the international traders gathering in their newly-opened port cities, particularly Yokohama. The art and antiques trade flourished there with many of the visitors opting to purchase objects as souvenirs or as profitable curiosities for their home market, especially with the favourable exchange rate. The most important Japanese collections in Milan were connected in some way to this silk route. Travel to Japan for the silkworm trade peaked in the early 1870s but declined quickly after the adoption of Pasteur’s methods. Works collected in Yokohama by the Italian merchants in the 1870s mostly date from the end of the Edo period, with only a small number of contemporary works.33 This shows that at this stage Meiji Japan’s artistic export production had not yet grown to flood the market, as it would a decade later, with goods catering to Western taste and expectations of Japanese art.

32_{Carolina Orsini and Anna Antonini, Objects of encounter MUDEC - Museo delle Culture : catalogue of works}

and exhibit guide, (2016), 30, note 15.

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30 The last category to add to the formation of the Non-European Collections are of the travel collections of local nobles and businessmen from the silkworm seed trade. The three most important East Asian collections of this time are the Passalacqua, Giussani and Meazza collections. Count Giovanni Battista Lucini Passalacqua (1845-1890) went on a tour of the world in 1871, accompanying Ferdinando Meazza, an experienced traveller and trader whose own collection will be examined later. Passalacqua travelled first to Japan on the Pei-Ho, a steamboat that allowed direct travel between Marseille and Yokohama, without having to change ships at Hong Kong. This was one of the advancements in transport of the era, adapting to the specific demand of French and Italian silkworm seed traders. Other advancements at that time, such as the opening of the Suez Canal and the First

Transcontinental Railroad in the United States, contributed to the ease and popularity of global travel. Passalacqua spent four months in Yokohama where he purchased hundreds of objects on the advice of Meazza and Pietro Savio, who had both been to Japan previously. His relations with the Italian trading community gave him this early opportunity to visit Japan and form one of the first travel collections in Italy.

Passalacqua displayed his collection privately for guests at his villa in Moltrasio near Lake Como from 1885. It has been referred to as the ‘Museo Giapponese’ or Japanese Museum Passalacqua, however the first written use of this name is in the Verbale di Consegna of 1900.34_{The presence of many Chinese objects within the collection would} indicate that Passalacqua had not such a narrow focus in his collection from Asia, and he spent one month of his travels in China. With regard to his collection of bronze works, the ratio of Japanese to Chinese works is approximately equal, and match the composition of other collectors of that time, such as Henri Cernuschi. Cernuschi set off on his round the world trip in the same year as Passalacqua, but arrived in Japan later, as he began the first leg of his trip in America.35

While most of the collection is from the late Edo period, Passalacqua purchased some contemporary bronze vases in Japan that were displayed at the 1874 exposition. Japanese bronzework was highly admired in Europe for its craftsmanship, particularly with the lost-wax casting method and the lacquering of metal.36 Passalacqua purchased bronze vases of the

34_{Pietro Amadini, “La Sala dei Bronzi al Castello Sforzesco. Le collezioni aziatiche” in Silvia Paoli, Luca Beltrami:}

1854-1933 ; storia, arte e architettura a Milano, (Cinisello Balsamo, Milano: Silvana Ed, 2014), 209 n. 9.

35_{Laura Basso, “18 gennaio 1900: un documento e qualche nota per il Museo Artistico Municipale,” (Milan:}

Libri Et Documenti / Archivio Storico Civico E Biblioteca Trivulziana / Archivio Storico Civico, 2012), 208.

36_{“Di là portò quella ricca collezione di oggetti d’arte, specialmente di bronzi tanto ammirata da quanti la}