Commodore Perry Coming Ashore at Yokohama
ペルリ提督横浜上陸の図
- Birth Year
- 1827
- Death Year
- 1885
- Date
- after 1854
- Technique, Material, Format
- oil on canvas
- Dimension
- 53.3 x 80.5 cm
- Donor name
- Mr. Hara Noriyuki and Mrs. Hara Etsuko
- Category
- Inventory Number
- 88-P-001
On March 8, 1854, the East India Squadron under Commodore Matthew Perry landed at Yokohama. The painting immortalized this historical moment for the present, capturing in detail the Black Ships gathered in the distance, the U.S. military sailors in formation and the samurai and the locals watching on. The artist, Peter Bernhard Wilhelm Heine, was the fleet’s official painter and had previously worked as a scene designer for the German court theater. This work is not large, but its dynamic composition emphasizing perspective is reminiscent of background pictures for theater. Given that the guidelines for the museum’s collection state that one of its focus areas will be “works tracing the history of exchange between Eastern and Western cultures,” this is an important piece that symbolizes the beginning of such exchange.
(MATSUNAGA Shintaro)