Japanese Women Cloaked in American and Japanese Flags in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 2009

Artist: Unknown Artist, Japanese School

Descriptive Title: [Japanese Women Cloaked in American and Japanese Flags]

Date: ca. 1900

Medium: Gelatin silver print

Dimensions: Image: 27.7 x 11.1 cm (10 7/8 x 4 3/8 in.)

Credit Line: Gift of Sue Cassidy Clark, in honor of Dr. Barbara Brennen Ford, 2006

Accession Number: 2006.525.2

Classification: Photograph

Additional Details: Applied color


Text from: www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/photog...

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In April 1853, a fleet of US Navy ships led by Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Edo Bay (now Tokyo) and insisted that the emperor abandon his isolationist ways and open his country’s harbors to foreign trade. Although the first camera appeared in Japan as early as 1848, the opening of its harbors five years later brought foreign photographers interested in a new market, and locals soon began to open their own businesses to cater to the growing tourist trade. By the end of the century, photography in Japan was a hugely popular commercial enterprise with a fierce trade in both imagery and photographic equipment. This portrait of two Japanese women illustrates the eagerness of the Japanese to maintain a diplomatic relationship with the United States, an influential superpower, during this period.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.