4x5 transparency scanned on Hasselblad Flextight X1 by Ed Pollard-2014.

Telegraph, Dance on Ship, Music and Singing on Ship

Attribution Hibata Osuke (Japanese, 1813 - 1870)

CultureJapanese

Date1854-1858

MediumWatercolor

DimensionsOverall: 12 x 50 1/2 in. (30.5 x 128.3 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase and gift of Mr. and Mrs. Victor Spark as a memorial to their son, Donald W. Spark, USMCR, 1923-1944

Object number52.55.1

Not on view

DescriptionPainting with three scenes of music, singing, dancing & a telegraph on a ship. Made at the time of Admiral M.C. Perry's visit to Japan in 1853. More information in 1952 jacket.

Label TextAfter Hibata Ōsuke Japanese, 1813-1870 Telegraph, Dance on Shop, Music and Singing on Ship, 1854 Watercolor on paper This scroll-like painting shows episodes from the second Perry expedition in 1854, when the admiral returned to Japan with a larger flotilla including his new flagship, the Powhatan. To the left the artist depicted the telegraph machinery Perry gifted to the Shôgun; to the right he shows the entertainment for the Japanese delegation on board the Powhatan. The printed program survives and documents these highly racist minstrel performances: dancing and singing by Perry's officers, all of whom were white, in blackface. This provides jarring testimony to the talents and tastes of Perry's crew. Taken with Perry's choice of black bodyguards, it also shows how they sought to represent America to the Japanese. Museum purchase and gift of Mr. and Mrs. Victor Spark, as a memorial to their son, Donald W. Spark, USMCR, 1923-1944 52.55.1Exhibition HistorySmithsonian Exhibit, "The Japan Expedition 1852-1855 of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry," Oct. 10 - Dec. 11, 1968. Union Carbide Building, under the Auspices of the Japan Society, Feb. 17 - March 20, 1969. Philadelphia Civic Center, April 5 - May 4, 1969. Published ReferencesU.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, July 1953, picture of singing. American Heritage, April 1958, in full color. 100th Anniversary Celebration-Perry Sailing 1952, Program Book Commemorating 70th Anniversary of Opening of Yokohama, published in Japan. Peter Booth Wiley, _Yankees in the Land of the Gods, Commodore Perry and the Opening of Japan_ (New York: Viking Penguin, 1990), 150, 216, 319, 369. Victor Fell Yellin, "Mrs. Belmont, Matthew Perry, and the Japanese 'Minstrels'," American Music, Volume 14, Number 3 (Fall, 1996), 269, black and white ill. 270. Richard Wiley, _Commodore Perry's Minstrel Show_ (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007) Cover & Title page. Brian Rouleau, _With Sails Whitening Every Sea: Mariners and the Making of an American Maritime Empire_ (Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014) 49, fig. 3.