Sentaro (SIMPACH), A Seaman of the Eiriki-maru
栄力丸船員 仙太郎
- Birth Year
- 1821
- Death Year
- 1902
- Date
- 1850–51
- Technique, Material, Format
- daguerreotype
- Dimension
- 9.3 x 7.3 cm
- Category
- Photograph or Moving Image by Unknown Photographer/Artist
- Inventory Number
- 85-PH-001
In 1850, 17 sailors from the Eiriki-maru, which was adrift on the Pacific Ocean, were rescued by an American freighter. Upon their arrival in San Francisco, the sailors were photographed, and the resulting portraits are thought to be the oldest surviving photographs ever taken of Japanese people.
The daguerreotype was the world’s first photographic technique, and its images are clear, with this one still vividly conveying the personality of its model even today. Sentaro was in his teens at the time. He appears calm in front of the camera, but his expression also betrays a sense of bewilderment at being in a foreign land.
Sentaro later traveled to Japan on board the “Black Ships” of Commodore Matthew Perry but seems to have returned to the United States without landing. He returned to Japan again one year after the country opened and settled in Yokohama.
(MATSUNAGA Shintaro)