[Japanese Embassy, Navy Yard, Washington, DC]
1860
![[Japanese Embassy, Navy Yard, Washington, DC] by Mathew B. Brady](https://images.artheonmuseum.org/met/ph/thumb/japanese-embassy-navy-yard-washington-dc-286097.webp)
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Dimensions
Image: 37.5 x 48.1 cm (14 3/4 x 18 15/16 in.) Mount: 41.8 x 49.6 cm (16 7/16 x 19 1/2 in.)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.1115
Tags
Art Historical Context
In 1860, as the United States stood on the brink of the War, photographer Mathew B. Brady captured a historic moment of East-West encounter: the arrival of Japan's first diplomatic embassy at the Washington Navy Yard. This albumen silver print depicts the delegation, led by Prince Shimmi Masaoki aboard the Kanrin Maru, marking Japan's opening to the world after Commodore Perry's expeditions. The image symbolizes burgeoning international relations, blending American industrial might with Japanese formality amid a crowd of onlookers, all rendered in crisp detail. Brady, a pioneer of American ph...
About the Artist
Mathew B. Brady · 1823–1896
Mathew B. Brady (c. 1823–1896) was an American photographer who became the most famous photographer of the Civil War era and one of the founding figures of American photographic history. Born in Warren County, New York, to Irish immigrant parents, he learned the daguerreotype process from Samuel F.B. Morse and William Page and opened his first portrait studio in New York City in 1844. Brady quick...