Rookwood and the Japanese Mania in Cincinnati by Kenneth Trapp

ntroduced to the arts of Japan at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, the I American public quickly developed a near-manic taste for things Japa- nese. Just as the English and the French two decades earlier had warmly embraced Japanese themes and styles, Americans now found an irresistible charm in the art from the exotic Land of the Rising Sun.1 A virtual Japanese fever swept America, burning most intensely and with indelible effect in the Arts and Crafts Movement. In few American cities was the Japanese mania more avid than in Cin- cinnati, where it manifested itself most strikingly in the decorative arts movement which began to flower in the Queen City in the late 1870's. With the founding of the Rookwood pottery in 1880, the powerful influence of Japanese art upon Cincinnati's decorators was soon to become a matter of nationwide note and emulation. While the Japanese influence upon Rookwood is commonly acknowledged by authorities on the pottery, only recently has there been an attempt to study the subject with some thoroughness. The dispersion of documents, a paucity of examples, and the complex nature of the subject have doubtless impeded serious investigation. Furthermore, a thorough study of the Japa- nese influence on Rookwood must be directed to more than the location, identification, and cataloguing of Japanese sources used by Rookwood decorators. Involved and important as this task is, it does not, however, focus upon the larger picture: the context of the Japanese mania in Cincinnati and in America and the effects the Japanese influence had upon the artistic and technical developments of Rookwood pottery. Many questions persist. Why are there so few examples of Rookwood which exhibit forms or decorations drawn from traceable Japanese sources? What kinds of Japanese art were being collected in Cincinnati in the late nineteenth century? These two questions lead to a third: To what extent were nineteenth-century American conceptions of Japanese art predeter- mined by Western aesthetics and predilections and to. what extent did the Japanese themselves contribute to and reinforce entrenched preconceptions, if not misconceptions, of their own art through Japanese export wares? Finally, to what extent was the Japanese influence on Rookwood derived from secondary sources such as printed material and from the work of European Japonisme decorators? While the answers—if indeed there are answers—to these questions are beyond the scope of this paper, nonetheless an examination of the Japanese influence upon Rookwood provides invalu- able insight into the pottery's history. The first Japanese influence on Rookwood is inextricably linked to the taste of Mrs. Maria Longworth Nichols (became Mrs. Bellamy Storer in 1886), the founder of the pottery. In 1875, Mrs. Nichols was given "some little Japanese books of designs" which a friend had brought her from Lon- don. Perhaps the books had been purchased from the orientalia shop on Regent Street which Arthur Lasenby Liberty had opened in May of that year. Mrs. (Nichols) Storer said of these books in an 1897 article published in the Art Journal: "This . . . was almost my first acquaintance with Japa- nese Art of the imaginative and suggestive kind. It prepared me for the wonderful beauty of the Japanese exhibit at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876."2 While attending the Centennial, Mrs. Nichols became captivated by the Japanese exhibits. Shown for the first time in America in great quantity, the Japanese ceramics, bronzes, lacquer work, and screens fired in her "a desire to have a place of my own where things could be made." She suggested to her father, Joseph Longworth, that a Japanese pottery—workmen and all—might be brought over.3 He was not thrilled with the suggestion. Undoubtedly, Mrs. Nichols would have seen the Haviland and Company of Limoges, France, exhibits of faience painted under the glaze, works which greatly inspired another Cincinnatian, Mary Louise McLaughlin. Included in the Haviland display was Felix Bracquemond's he Service Parisien.4 Strongly suggestive of Japanese imagery, the lyrical decorations of the service depicted the atmospheric effects of the changing seasons. Returned to Cincinnati, Maria Longworth Nichols and her husband ad- vanced the Japanese mania in the Queen City. In Art Education Applied to Industry, published in 1877, George Ward Nichols wrote:

the novelty, freshness, and infinite grace of the decoration of . . Japa- nese ceramics, bronzes, screens, fans, and lacquer work will exert a wide and positive influence upon American art industries, an influence more immediate and enduring in its action than that of any one country, or perhaps of all the countries combined, which exhibited at the Centennial Exposition.5

Mrs. Nichols in turn began to develop her highly idiosyncratic Japanesque style. In 1878, examples of her Japanese-inspired drawings appeared in two publications by her husband: as a cover design and interior vignettes in The Cincinnati Organ and as a cover design and five plates of suggested

52 s

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The designs on the cover of Pottery, How It Is Made by George Ward Nichols in 1878 were compiled and drawn by Maria Longworth Nichols, wife of the author. designs for decoration after the Japanese in Pottery, How It Is Made. The drawings for the latter volume were copied, directly or through secondary sources, from at least four Japanese books of illustrations.6 Perhaps Mrs. Nichols compiled her drawings for Pottery, How It Is Made from the little books of Japanese designs given to her by a friend in 1875. It is doubtful that she knew either the names of the artists or the titles of her Japanese books. By 1878, the interest in Japanese art in Cincinnati had reached a fevered pitch. The Women's Art Museum Association (1877-1886) opened a Loan Exhibition on May 6, bringing to public attention a wide selection of Japa- nese art in private Cincinnati collections. Satsuma, Kaga, Yokohama, Kyoto, Hizen, and other ceramic wares, as well as bronzes, lacquer work, carvings in wood, swords, cloisonne, and musical instruments were shown. The selection of Japanese art was clearly decorative. Interestingly, the Loan Exhibi- tion catalogue listed no Japanese scrolls, screens, illustrated books, or wood block prints. Sixteen pieces of Japanese art from the collection of George Ward Nichols were exhibited, as were several examples of Japanese art from the Joseph Longworth collection.7 On May 13, 1878, a major exhibition and sale of Japanese art took place in Cincinnati. The sale catalogue, which listed 433 works of art, included this puffery:

Rare examples of all the choicest Potteries, Porcelains Cloissone ]sic[ on Copper and Porcelain, rare old Bronzes, Ivory Carvings, pure Gold and Ancient Cinnabar Lacquers will be found here. Nothing finer can be laid down in this or any other city, since nothing finer or more beau- tiful can be found and purchased in Japan.8

That a sale of this magnitude was held in Cincinnati testifies to the intense interest in Japanese art in the Queen City in the late 1870's. The Nicholses might very well have purchased objects from this sale. In May 1879 Mrs. Nichols approached Frederick Dallas about the possi- bility of using the facilities of his commercial pottery. Dallas consented to make and fire pieces for Nichols. Her earliest decorated pottery was strongly Japanese in spirit. Typifying her pre-Rookwood Japanese decoration are three pieces —two large vases and a short bottle vase.9 A second major exhibition and sale of Japanese and Far Eastern art occurred in Cincinnati in May 1880. The sale catalogue listed 309 separate entries, comprising mostly ceramics which included Awata, Bishu, Hizen, Imari, Kaga, Ota, Owari, and Satsuma. Many of the ceramic pieces were described as being decorated with flowers, birds in flight, bamboo and birds, foliage, insects, and delicate blue clouding. 10 Such natural subjects had particular appeal to the pottery decorators and wood carvers of Cincinnati.

54 Undoubtedly an exhibition and sale of this scope attracted Mrs. Nichols. Although not mentioning her by name, the August 1880 Potter's American Monthly described Mrs. Nichols' decorated pottery:

Upon a delicate buff foundation there will be perhaps a panel of blue, shaded with pure nicety, with here and there a dragon in relief, richly gilded, and coiled it may be, around the bottom or near the top, where it is made to form quaint handles, while the introduction of one or two droll figures in human shape, give [sic] these vases a decidely Japanese appearance.11

In the summer of 1880, Mrs. Nichols founded her own pottery in a former schoolhouse at 207 Eastern Avenue. Named "Rookwood' after her childhood home in bucolic East Walnut Hills, her small pottery would, she hoped, achieve a prominence in ceramics equal to that of Wedgwood. The first kiln was drawn on Thanksgiving Day. Although the contents of the kiln are a matter for speculation today, these earliest pieces were very probably a con- tinuation of Mrs. Nichols' Japanese-inspired work.12 With the founding of Rookwood, Mrs. Nichols continued to cultivate her own distinctively primitive style. Grotesque subjects, often treated humor- ously, predominated. Dragons, gaping-mouthed fish with bulging eyes, crabs and other crustaceans, marine creatures, leaping and dancing frogs, march- ing crickets, spiders in their webs, flyingbats , and owls perched on branches with a full moon as a back drop were painted and modeled with vigorous naivete. More lyrical interpretations of common Japanese decorative motifs included sprays of flowers, leafy bamboo and berries, flying swallows, and cranes. Imitations of Japanese calligraphy often enhanced a decorative scheme. Elizabeth Perry succinctly described Mrs. Nichols' decorative work in an 1881 Harper's New Monthly Magazine article as having:

the inevitable dragon coiled about the neck of the vase, or at its base, varied with gods, wise men, the sacred mountain, storks, owls, monsters of the air and water, bamboo, etc., decorated in high relief, under glaze color, incised design, and an overglaze enrichment of gold.13

Within a year after she had opened Rookwood, Mrs. Nichols hired the pottery's first professional decorator, Albert Robert Valentien (nee Valen- tine). Prior to joining Rookwood, Valentien and John Rettig had taught a class in underglaze slip painting at the Patrick L. Coultry commercial pottery. Often referred to as "Cincinnati faience" or "Cincinnati Limoges," the underglaze slip painting process used in the Queen City had been developed and perfected by Mary Louise McLaughlin. McLaughlin's technique, adopted

55 as the standard method of decorating pottery at Rookwood, involved the painting of green—or still moist—ceramic forms with colored slips—liquid clay. Ideally, the clay form and slip decoration would dry uniformly, creating a single piece. After the first, or bisque, firing a piece was usually covered with a clear or tinted glaze to bring forth the brilliance of the slip painting underneath. Joseph Nichols Hirschfeld and Matthew Daly, two other decorators hired in the early years of Rookwood, had received their initial training in pottery decoration at the Matt Morgan Art Pottery Company, a local rival of Rook- wood equally eclectic in its decorative styles. A conservative Japanesque decorative style using a limited repertory of leafy bamboo, flying swallows, and fluttering butterflies was carried to Rookwood by Hirschfeld and Daly. At times the Japanesque decorations of Mrs. Nichols, Albert R. Valentien, Nicholas J. Hirschfeld, and Matt A. Daly were uncannily similar, sometimes even indistinguishable. It was not long, however, before Valentien and Daly developed their own individual styles. Under the influence of the Japanese, both men decorated some of the most exquisite examples of Rookwood in the 1880'sand 1890's. Five years after the Centennial Exhibition Mrs. Nichols had not aban- doned her desire to secure a Japanese decorator. With Rookwood established, she began her search for a Japanese decorator, turning for help to a fellow Ohioan, the diplomat John A. Bingham. The Cincinnati Daily Gazette on August 22, 1881 reported that Mrs. Nichols was seeking to employ a Japanese pottery decorator to teach in the "Rookwood School for Pottery Decoration."

The art classes to open at the pottery this autumn are exciting wide interest, to which fresh impetus is given by the expected arrival of the Japanese artist Ichidsuka Kenzo, whose services Mrs. Nichols has secured through Minister Bingham. The artist, his tools, his materials, and an assistant will arrive in late September, and are secured, of course, at a great outlay of money. Kenzo leaves his country by special permission of his government, and is, we learn, the only artist of high rank possessing the secrets of the potter's art who has received such permission.14

The Art Journal of December 1881 reported that a Japanese decorator had been engaged by Rookwood.15 It is probable that this report was derived from the earlier Daily Gazette article. Research has failed to verify the arrival of Kenzo and his assistant or any other Japanese decorator at Rookwood in 1881. It is most unlikely that the arrival of a Japanese decorator—indeed of any Japanese—in Cincinnati at that time would have escaped notice. Three vases by Maria Longworth Nichols, 1880, potted and decorated at the Frederick Dallas Pottery on Hamilton Road (now McMicken Avenue). The original photograph of these vases which is in the archives of the Cincinnati Art Museum is inscribed: "To Mr. A.T. Goshorn with kind regards of Geo Ward Nichols May 1880."

William Watts Taylor began recording the shape designs in 1883 in a ledger called the Rookwood Shape Book. This Aladdin Vase was the first entry. Although the decorator of the vase is unknown, it is most probably the work of Mrs. Nichols and may have been among the pieces fired in the first Rookwood kiln in late 1880. Much of the first year's production by Rookwood consisted of commercial wares—breakfast and dinner services, pitchers, wine coolers, ice tubs, and umbrella stands—not usually identified by a Rookwood mark. These commercial wares were intended to increase revenue in order to sustain the cost of creating the more expensive artistic pieces. Hoping to keep production cost of the commercial wares to a minimum, Mrs. Nichols introduced transfer printing in 1881. Clara Chipman Newton, secretary to Mrs. Nichols and one of the earliest decorators at Rookwood, wrote:

The first steps of this process, engraving the copper plates, were exceed- ingly expensive. Finally the matter was adjusted on a somewhat more economical basis than was at first supposed possible, and the designs of birds, fishes, lobsters, etc., carefully selected from Japanese books were prepared.16

Apparently this line of ware proved too expensive or unpopular, for only two examples of Rookwood's transfer printing are known.17 The September 12, 1882 Crockery and Glass Journal reported that a "celebrated Japanese decorator with an unpronounceable name"18 was to arrive at Rookwood. This report may have referred to Ichidsuka Kenzo, whose services had been sought by Mrs. Nichols a year earlier. Of the Japanese illustrated books known to have been used by Rookwood decorators, Hokusafs Manga seems to have been the most popular and offers one of the rare instances in which an actual source of decorative motifs can be documented. The Manga, a compact fifteen-volume encyclopedic work illustrating Japanese flora, fauna, imaginary creatures, folklore and legends, grotesqueries, and manners and customs, was used widely by French artists in the late nineteenth century. Hokusai's lively illustrations offered a rich variety of fascinating subjects. The Cincinnati Art Museum has three early pieces of Rookwood decorated wth motifs inspired by, if not copied directly from, the Manga. Not surprisingly, two of the pieces were decorated by Mrs. Nichols. Her use of Japanese motifs represents the Japanese influence at its most imitative. Mrs. Nichols was particularly drawn to the grotesque elements in Japanese art, copying designs crudely, rather than absorbing the lessons in delicacy to be learned from Japanese art. By 1883 it was evident that Rookwood required the leadership of a business manager if the pottery were to become independent. That year Mrs. Nichols hired William Watts Taylor as general business manager to place the fledglingpotter y on a sound financial and artistic course. One of Taylor's first measures was to record the shapes produced by Rookwood and to analyze the sales of these shapes, determining whether they were successful or not. To this end, Taylor had Clara Chipman Newton enter the shapes producd up to then into a ledger called the Rookwood Shape Record Book,

58 the most valuable single document extant for the study of early Rookwood. Each shape design entered into the ledger is accompanied by a thumbnail- size photograph or an ink or pencil sketch. Written descriptions of the source of the shape, its decorator or decorators, its method of manufacture, whether press molded, cast or thrown, and its sales record complete many of the entries, in particular those shapes recorded the earliest. The Shape Record Book documents the eclecticism of Rookwood in its formative period. More- over, the Shape Book reveals the extent and nature of the Japanese influence upon Rookwood. Pieces from Nichols' collection frequently served as prototypes. Among the numerous designs listed as being influenced by Japanese examples are:

22. Jewel box, 1882. After Japanese design. Pressed with grasses, butterflies. Not very saleable. 8 sold. 42. Japanese crock after model furnished by MLN 1884. 3 sold. 53. "Fish" entree dish. Japanese model, blue and white. $6 per dozen. Oct. 1885. 35 sold. 80. Chocolate pot with spout at side, from Japanese vase MLN. 11 sold. 14Q. Footed bowl. After Japanese bronze. 1884. 244. Pressed bowl 1885 (afterwd. cast) by W. W. T. from Mrs. Nichols Japanese wallpaper.

Although it is impossible to determine how or where Mrs. Nichols obtained her Japanese art objects, it was not necessary for her to leave Cincinnati to secure them. Besides important auctions of Japanese held in the city in the 1870's and 1880's, retailers in luxury goods carried Japanese art. Emery H: Barton, dealer in artists' materials, pictures, and picture frames located at 17 Emery Arcade, advertised in 1882 "Japanese Scrolls, & c." among other works of art.19 The George T. Marsh and Company of San Francisco, an importer and dealer in Japanese antiquities, curiosities and novelties, maintained a branch in Cincinnati from 1881 to 1883. Interestingly, in an 1883 advertisement in Beauties of California, Marsh and Company listed its five branches: Yokohama, Tokio and Hiogo in Japan and Cincinnati and San Francisco in the United States.20 That Marsh and Company considered Cincinnati important enough to open a branch here was a testament to the strong interest in Japanese art in the Queen City. It is apparent that the Japanese influence on Rookwood in its early years derived in part from contemporary European ceramics, in particular the faience of Emile Galle. Galle's faience was carried by Schultze and Company, a Cincinnati retailer in luxury goods, as early as 1880. The Cincinnati Ga- zette on October 7, 1880, reporting on newly-arrived European ceramics, wrote: "Less rare, but very pleasing, is the Nancy faience, unique in shape,

59 and with exquisite decoration, by Galle."21 The Rookwood Shape Record Book records four entries modeled after "Nancy ware:" Shape Number 102, crushed vases; Shape Number 107, a vase; Shape Number no, a crushed pitcher; and Shape Number 115, another crushed pitcher. The four Nancy ware prototypes which Rockwood copied were provided by Robert H. Gal- breath, principal agent for Duhme and Company, another Cincinnati retailer in luxury goods. There is no doubt that "Nancy ware" in fact refers to the pottery of Galle. Rookwood produced imitative pieces with shapes and decorations almost identical to those of extant Galle faience. Galle himself knew of Rookwood's imitations of his Japonisme ceramics. This is documented in a July 9, 1887 letter from William Watts Taylor to Gordon Shillito:

I was somewhat annoyed but more amused to hear through Messrs. Duhme & Co. that Mr. Email Gaille [sic] of Nancy had told you that Rook- wood was copying his trademark. I believe Mr. Morris showed you a number of pieces bearing our reg- ular stamps which you no doubt observed bear no resemblance whatever to Mr. G. But I would like you, if not too much trouble . . . see the gentleman on your return, to assure him that he is under an entirely mistaken impression.

Taylor ends by writing "I dislike to have Rookwood classed among the 'pirates' who are making careful reproductions of European work and calling it 'American' art."22 Taylor appears to have willfully misunderstood Galle's complaint. Galle believed that Rookwood was copying not his mark but his forms and style, as in fact that pottery had done from 1881 to 1883 before Taylor arrived at Rookwood. From Taylor's letter it seems clear that Galle and Gordon Shillito knew each other. Shillito may have shown Galle examples of Rookwood's imitations of the Nancy artist's faience. During a three year period from 1883 to 1886 several events occurred which led to the development of a distinctive Rookwood style and brought the formative period of the firm to an end. In 1883, Laura A. Fry adapted the mouth atomizer as an instrument to apply an even-colored slip ground to green ware. Grounds of different colors could be laid one over the other to create delicate graduations. This technical innovation permitted the blend- ing of slip-painted decorations with an atmospheric ground and led almost at once to a change in subject matter. Japanesque grotesqueries and humor- ous subjects painted in a primitive manner were largely replaced by delicate, lyrical renderings of floral subjects arranged asymmetrically over simple forms. The slight relief of the underglaze slip painting was suggestive of Japanese lacquer decoration.

60 Rookwood's first two distinct lines-the Cameo wares and Standard Ware —were introduced in the mid-1880's about the same time. The Cameo and Cameo Bisque, the former with a clear high glaze and the latter with a non- glossy smear glaze, were as pastel as the Standard Ware was richly dark and mysterious. Subjects drawn from Japanese imagery, yet interpreted in an "American" manner, prevailed as the decoration of the Cameo line: calli- graphically rendered bamboo and other grasses swaying in the breeze, swallows in flight or about to alight, hovering butterflies, and of course blossoms and plants. The accidental creation of an aventurine glaze in 1884, named Tiger Eye, set the pottery on a course of experiments. Clay bodies, applied decorations, shape designs, and glazes were tested to achieve the most pleasing visual effects and to reduce the high risks of damage or destruction in firing. Examples of other art potteries, both American and European, were widely studied, and a Record Museum of Rookwood's own productions was established as an archive. There is reason to believe that examples of Japanese ceramics were also collected by Rookwood for study purposes.23 The Art Amateur of December 1885 reported that Mrs. Nichols "has sent to Japan for a native decorator of high reputation . . . ." The anonymous writer admonishes Mrs. Nichols to refrain from producing Japanese pottery in America.

In congratulating this lady on the latest evidence of her enterprise and good judgment, we venture to hope that she will insist that a distinctive American character be given to her ware. It will be a serious mistake if the artist who is to be brought here is required to do nothing but make Japanese pottery in America.24

The writer was very much aware of the influence which Japanese art had already exerted upon the youthful pottery. In a shop on Broadway he had seen a Rookwood teapot priced at $2.50, and a few doors farther down he had seen a Japanese teapot of almost exactly the same shape priced at only 50 cents. A slender bit of information in Stanley G. Burt's holograph of 1916 listing the 2,292 pieces of Rookwood pottery then on loan to the Cincinnati Art Museum suggests that a Japanese decorator had visited Rookwood in i885. Under that year appears the following entry in Burt's holograph:

25. Dish #2,wh[white] clay (poor color) clear gl.[glaze] slip painting with Jap[Japanese] letters and signature M.Haigo Rookwood 1885-28 D.25

To conclude from this entry that a Japanese decorator, one M. Haigo, had decorated a piece of Rookwood in 1885 is hazardous. There is no evidence,

61 This page from the Osui Gafu-Nihen by Asai Osui was obtained for the Cincinnati Art Museum through the Edwin and Virginia lrwin Memorial.

On September ig, 1886, the Cincinnati Enquirer announced the arrival of the "Japanese Village" for the Thirteenth Cincinnati Industrial Exposition. for example, that the dish was both potted and decorated in 1885, although slip painting at Rookwood customarily followed shortly after the creation of a form. A Rookwood teajar in a private collection bears the impressed date of 1885 but is signed and dated "M.H./1886." This jar, painted in blue over the glaze with foliate arabesques, may have been decorated by M. Haigo who was trained in decorating ceramics over the glaze. Burt's entry for the dish creates confusion in that the number 28D does not correspond to a shape of the same number in the Shape Record Book. Two entries appear in the Shape Book for Shape Number 28: a lamp vase modeled after an antique vase, depicted in a small photograph, and a cylin- drical vase with a trumpet-flared lip. Masuo Haigo is known to have visited Cincinnati in 1886 as a member of the traveling "Japanese Village" which appeared at the Industrial Exposition. The Japanese mania in Cincinnati climaxed in 1886, and the formative period of the Rookwood Pottery came to a close. In March of that year Professor Edward S. Morse, a noted traveler, author, scholar, and Japano- phile, delivered four lectures in Cincinnati on Japanese subjects. The third lecture, presented on March 9, covered Japanese painting, pottery, tea ceremonies, ceramics, and drawing schools. Professor Morse was the guest of Mrs. Nichols, with whom he shared a strong interest in Japanese art.26 It is probable that Mrs. Nichols sponsored Morse's lectures as part of the gala celebrations leading up to the opening of the Cincinnati Art Museum in its newly-constructed building in Eden Park. On March 13, 1886, the Women's Art Museum Association engaged Morse to speak about the "Man- ners and Customs of the Japanese."27 While in Cincinnati, Morse suggested the shapes for two flower vases which were entered in the Shape Book as Numbers 272 and 273. These were slight variations of the same Japanese form: a thrown small ovoid body with a wide, flowing,an d flared lip. Morse's sojourn in Cincinnati was not wholly devoted to lecturing and attending social affairs occasioned by the marriage of his hostess to Bellamy Storer on March 10: it was also a matter of business. By the time Morse returned to Salem, Massachusetts, Mrs. Storer had purchased from him some 670 pieces of Japanese pottery, duplicates culled from his collection. Her check for $3,500 arrived in time for Morse to pay an overdue note.28 The entry for an almond dish assigned Shape Number 280 in the Shape Book in April 1886 reads: "From shape in Mrs. Storer's Morse Collection." Mrs. Storer lent her Japanese pottery collection to the Cincinnati Art Museum ini888.29 Desperate for money, Morse offered to sell a collection of Japanese teajars to the Cincinnati Art Museum. In a letter of April 26, 1886 to General Alfred T. Goshorn, Director of the Art Museum, Morse wrote: I have lately had intrusted [sic] to me a large collection of Japanese tea jars with their brocade bags and boxes. Most of them are duplicated in my collection .... The bulk of them I must dispose of and rather to have them go in smaller lots to private parties it has occurred to me that possibly your museum might take the larger number about 150 at the price of eleven hundred dollars.30

Morse added that if 150 were too many he could offer a lot of 100 for $600 or an even smaller lot of fifty for $500. Morse acknowledged Mrs. Storer's desire to have his collection ultimately go to the Cincinnati Art Museum, noting "that if such a thing should happen in the future I would take back the tea jars at the price paid for them." The Museum did not purchase the teajars, either because it lacked funds or, more probably, because Mrs. Storer made known her intention to lend her collection to the Museum. Mrs. Storer held Morse's collection of Japanese pottery in such high esteem that she sent Laura A. Fry and Albert R. Valentien, two of Rookwood's most accomplished decorators, to Salem, where they "spent several days in making drawings of a few attractive pieces .... "31 Shape Numbers 136, 275, 305 and 307 were inspired by pottery in the Morse Collection. In turn, in 1888, Morse sent suggestions for shape designs based on Japanese prototypes, and these were entered in the Shape Book. Other Japanese-inspired shape designs came from friends and business acquaintances of Mrs. Storer and Rook wood. Besides the collection of Japanese pottery, Mrs. Storer also lent the Cin- cinnati Art Museum sixty-one Japanese textiles—fukusas—in 1886 and 1888 and several painted silk scrolls. The birds, flowers, plants, aquatic life, and other decorative subjects on the fukusas and scrolls represented a catalogue of similar subjects used by Rookwood decorators of the period.32 Mrs. Storer's collection of Japanese art on loan to the Art Museum was accessible to the Rookwood decorators, who doubtless were encouraged to avail themselves of the works. Shortly before the opening of the Cincinnati Art Museum in May 1886, the Women's Art Museum Association disbanded, its goal of establishing an art museum with a training school having been achieved. One of the last pieces donated to the Art Museum by the Association was a small vase executed by the French Japonisme decorator Henri J. M. Pottier.33 The two geese and six flying swallows on the vase were copied directly from a single page of birds and fowl in volume 4 of Hokusai's Manga. This gift underscored the interest in contemporary European ceramics and Japanese art in Cincinnati. The Japanese mania in Cincinnati continued to a frenzied pitch in late 1886 with the arrival of the Deakin Brothers and Company's "Japanese Village" on September 19. The featured attraction of the Thirteenth Cincin-

64 nati Industrial Exposition, the Village was composed of some sixty to seventy men, women, and children plying their trades and demonstrating their crafts. In the prologue to the program of events appeared the following self- congratulations : "The finest skilled labor in Japan has been selected to people this little Japanese village, and native materials have been specially gathered—doors, mats, samples, ware and tools, of a thousand descriptions- amounting in all to fifty tons, the whole being transported and produced in its present condition at enormous expense." The prologue further pro- claimed the Village "a stupendous enterprise, and as a result cannot fail to mark a new era in its impress upon the American public, which for the first time gazes upon the revealed secrets of Japanese art."34 Between 1885 and 1887 the Village traveled throughout the United States, making stops in Milwaukee, Chicago, Omaha, St. Louis, Cincinnati, New York, and Boston. The Japanese Village offered Cincinnatians an exciting glimpse into Jap- anese customs, manners, and arts. The Village included twenty-four separate artistic occupations, events, and areas. A visitor could view potters and modelers, pottery and porcelain decorators, cabinet makers, silk weavers and embroiderers, metalsmiths, painters, and barbers at work. A fine art exhibit, a shop of curios, Panorama of Japan, a parlor, and an ochaya, or teahouse, provided additional amusement. Not all was work in the Village. In the evenings members of the Village performed the "Dai Nippon Hakurankai," which provided dramatic enter- tainment and ample opportunity for the artists to demonstrate their skills. The scenario was drawn from medieval Japanese history and was set at Hakone Sekisho (gateway) on the Tokaido (government road) at the foot of the Hakone mountain pass. In centuries past, Japanese subjects could not travel without passports. To travel to Kyoto (Kioto), the old Capital, one had to pass several gateways along the Tokaido. As the artists had no passports, they had to perform their skills in order to pass safely through each gateway. Two of the traveling artists listed in the programme were Shira- yamadani and Haigo Masuo.3^ The latter was a Bishu porcelain painter. Shirayamadani was a painter also, although whether of pottery or porcelain is not known.36 For Mrs. Storer the Japanese Village must have been a dream come true. Since the Centennial a decade earlier, she had entertained the dream of importing a Japanese pottery—workmen and all—to Cincinnati. While the Japanese Village did not fulfill this dream it did the next best thing by bringing together in one place a group of potters, modelers, and ceramic decorators. The Japanese Village was not an attraction which could go unnoticed by Rookwood's technicians and decorators. Indeed, the Village presented a su- perb opportunity for Rookwood artists and craftsmen to compare their ceramic techniques with traditional Japanese methods. In an article published

65 in The Chautauquan of 1886, a potter at Rookwood made reference to the Village when he asked the author: " 'Have you seen the Jap clay modeler at the Expo? Do you see how differently I work from him?' "37 Moreover, there is reason to believe that members of the Village were invited to Rookwood to decorate pottery, a courtesy the company came to extend to visiting dig- nitaries. In Burt's holograph, under the year 1886, appears the following terse entry:

23. 24 Sml. [small] vases red clay bisc. [biscuit or bisque] with slip dec. [decoration] signature on foot in Jap. [Japanese] letters.38

Perhaps, in search for a Japanese decorator, Rookwood had invited the pottery decorators in the Village to demonstrate their skills in underglaze slip painting. It seems more than mere coincidence that Shirayamadani should arrive at Rookwood six months following the appearance of the Village in Cincinnati. Furthermore, except for the year 1885, Burt lists no pieces of Rookwood decorated by unknown Japanese. The arrival of the Japanese Village in 1886 marked the climax of the Japanese mania in Cincinnati and signaled a second phase in Rookwood's courting of Japanese art. The direct imitation of Japanese shapes and decorative motifs, already on the wane, ceased. Floral subjects rendered in a highly naturalistic manner and sometimes stylized became the predominate subject matter. Japanese art was no longer treated as an exotic curiosity; rather, the lessons to be learned from Japanese art were assimilated into the mainstream of the Rockwood aesthetic. After Mrs. Nichols' marriage to Bellamy Storer in 1886, following the death of George Ward Nichols the previous year, she relinquished her com- manding interest in Rookwood, leaving the operation of the pottery in the capable hands of William Watts Taylor. On May 3, 1887, Mrs. Storer's dream of having a Japanese decorator at Rookwood came true. On that date Kataro Shirayamadani arrived at Rook- wood. He came to Cincinnati from Boston, his services having been secured through the help of Louis Wertheimer, a Boston dealer in Oriental art. On May 4,1887 William Watts Taylor wrote to Wertheimer:

The young Japanese arrived yesterday before your letter but found his way here without difficulty. One of our decorators has found quarters for him temporarily in his boarding home. Mrs. Storer and the writer are quite pleased with his appearance and manners and the experiment seems quite worthwhile to make. We have thought best to put him at once at underglaze painting (in the wet clay) because the technique requires practice. . . . Moreover,

66 In 1898 the Rookwood Pottery donated to the Cincinnati Art Museum 208 Japanese teapots.

Mrs. Henrietta Haller gave Ryusen Gafu- Jimbutsu, Gyochu no Bu by Yanagawa Shigeiiobu, ca. 182,0, to the Cincinnati Art Museum. Mrs. Storefs feeling is that it would be little object to have him merely reproduce the overglaze work here which is so much better and more cheaply done in Japan. What we want is the merit of their painting developed under our conditions—in short Japanese Rookwood [author's emphasis].39

Interestingly, on March 10, 1887 Taylor had written to a Mr. Y. Tomita, in care of the Japanese Village in Washington, D.C., to say that Rookwood could not employ a Mr. Yamada.40 It is probable that by March 1887, if not earlier, Rookwood was endeavoring to engage Shirayamadani. Doubtless Shirayamadani had left the Village in Boston to find reliable employment. It was not uncommon for members of the Village to leave the troop along the way for this very purpose. Six months after his arrival at Rookwood, Sharayamadani's decorated work was introduced to the public. In October 1887, examples of his decorated Rookwood were premiered at the Piedmont Exposition in Atlanta. Shirayamadani's pieces were marked with an "X" to distinguish them from the work of other decorators.41 In his correspondence, especially with Rookwood's agents, Taylor lost no chance to promote Shirayamadani. Moreover, Taylor included references to the young Japanese decorator in the pottery's advertisements in popular American magazines. That Rookwood had the good fortune to employ a Japanese decorator was indeed a coup to be celebrated. Within a short time Shirayamadani became one of Rookwood's principal decorators. While he seems to have produced perceptible "Japanese" influence upon the other decorators, the conception and exquisite refinement of his decorations as well as his mere presence no doubt inspired the decorating staff. One of the most striking features of Rookwood in the mid-1880's was the turn to nature for almost all decorative subjects. To assist the decorators, Rookwood maintained a library of watercolor sketches, drawings, photographs, clippings, periodicals, and books. Among the periodicals to which Rookwood subscribed was S. Bing's Artistic Japan.42 Decorators were encouraged to keep their own sketchbooks and designs. Rookwood required that its decorators be proficient in oil and watercolor painting, especially the latter, because slip painting demanded accuracy, a steady hand, and above all speed. Rookwood decorators frequently went directly to nature for subject matter. On Saturdays in the late 1880's, decorators were often invited to the Japanese water-lily and lotus pond laid out by Reuben Warden on his estate at North Bend, an outlying district near Cincinnati.43 After Rookwood moved its plant to Mt. Adams in 1892, the Pottery maintained a garden of culti- vated flowers and plants to beautify the grounds and to provide floral speci- mens for the decorators. Although pottery decorating required an indoor

68 studio, freshly cut flowers and plants were regularly studied and copied. By the early 1890's Rookwood decorators were using two hundred flowers and plants as decorative subjects and were adding to this number constantly.44 Rookwood won its first major international recognition in 1889 at the Paris Exposition Universelle when its wares were awarded a Gold Medal. That French critics faulted the pottery for its dependence on the Japanese seems ironic in light of the continuing strength of Japanese influence upon French decorative art. Following the award of the Gold Medal and the con- comitant publicity, Rookwood gained financial solvency after a decade of subsidization by Mrs. Storer. During the 1890's, interest in Japanese art remained strong in Cincinnati, but without the intensity of the previous two decades. By the mid-1890's the attractions of Japanese art had ceased to be novel, and the influence exerted by Japan had been assimilated into the mainstream of American art. Whereas the Industrial Expositions of the late 1870's and 1880's had fanned the flame of the Japanese mania in the Queen City, in the last decade of the nineteenth century and early years of the twentieth century the Cincinnati Art Museum came to fill a similar role, albeit in a much less spectacular way. Recognizing the popular and the increasingly scholarly interest in Japa- nese art, the Cincinnati Art Museum promoted this interest by accepting many gifts and loans of Japanese and other oriental art. In 1887, one year after the Museum opened its new building in Eden Park, John W. Book- waiter of Springfield, Ohio, lent his large collection which included Japa- nese sword guards, knife handles, bronze sculpture, cloisonne, lacquer, kakemonos, embroidered textiles, and carved ivories and bamboo.45 The Cincinnati Art Museum followed and further encouraged public interest in Japanese art through its schedule of temporary exhibitions. In 1896 the Art Museum exhibited in two separate displays 735 Japanese paintings and color prints from the W. H. Ketcham Collection.46 During this exhibition, Rookwood engaged Professor Ernest F. Fenollosa, an authority on Japanese art and an advisor to W. H. Ketcham, to deliver a lecture for the benefit of the Pottery's decorators, as well as the public.47 While in Cincin- nati Fenollosa delivered a lecture on Japanese art at the Art Museum in the galleries in which the Ketcham Collection was shown. A second exhibition of Japanese art opened at the Museum in October of 1900.48 One hundred colored photographs of Japanese subjects carefully selected by K. Shirayamadani were shown to the public. The following year the Art Museum purchased eleven of the photographs of temples, gardens, and architecture in Tokyo from Shirayamadani.49 During the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the first two of the present, the Cin- cinnati Art Museum and Rookwood Pottery maintained a close relationship. From 1895 to his death in 1913 William Watts Taylor was a trustee of the Art Museum, serving terms on the Classifications Committee, which voted

69 on the purchase of works of art. Although funds for acquisitions were mod- est, the Museum regularly purchased Japanese color prints from 1897 to the First World War.so Undoubtedly, Taylor had an influential voice in these purchases. Moreover, as a Museum trustee Taylor could keep the Rookwood decorators informed of purchases which might be of particular interest. Rookwood Pottery regularly presented the Art Museum with examples of its productions in the 1890's. Furthermore, by 1916 Rookwood had on loan to the Museum some 2,300 pieces of its pottery dating from 1880 to that year. In 1898, Rookwood donated a collection of 208 Japanese teapots to the Museum "with the understanding that the donor may from time to time borrow pieces for study at the Pottery".51 Two years later Rookwood presented the Museum with a second gift of Japanese ceramics, this time 312 vases, incense burners, teajars, bottles, and wine cup stands.52 From 1894 to 1915 Rookwood regularly introduced new glaze and decorative lines in order to appeal to a larger buying public, and of course, to remain ahead of the Pottery's imitators and competitors. Within a three month period in 1894, three new glaze lines were rapidly introduced. The Iris and Sea Green glazes proved popular, but the Aerial Blue was produced for only a brief period. While the rich colors of the Standard Ware continued to sell, the paler palettes of the Iris and Sea Green glazes acknowledged the competition of popular changes in European decorative hues. By the end of the 1890's Rookwood had become one of countless decorative arts firms throughout Europe and America which felt the force of the Art Nouveau then emanating from France. Whereas the Japanese influence which entered Rookwood through Galle's Japonisme ceramics in the early 1880's is easily discernible, it is much more difficult to determine to what extent the treat- ment of floral subjects in the Art Nouveau was tempered by the Japanese. Indeed, by the 1890's the French had had a half century to assimilate Japa- nese art into their decorative arts tradition. Although the influence of Japanese art upon Rookwood continued through the 1890's and well into the twentieth century, this influence became pro- gressively submerged. Intermittently, pieces were created which clearly showed their indebtedness to Japanese prints, paintings, stencils, and other works of art. A revival of interest in oriental forms and decorative subjects as late as the 1920's underscored the tenacity with which Japanese art held Rookwood captive for forty years. The exuberant Japanesque decorations of Mrs. Nichols in the 1870's and 1880's did not in themselves leave any great legacy to American ceramic art, but the work of brilliant decorators at the pottery which she founded surely did. The freedom with which nature was recorded by Rookwood artists could not have developed without the example of Japanese artists and the rich catalogue of their decorative subjects. Moreover, the ceramics of Japan afforded Rookwood a treasure trove of forms, bodies, glazes, decorations,

. 70 and techniques from which to draw continued inspiration. Mrs. Nichols' tireless enthusiasm for Japanese design during the decade after the Centennial found avid support among patrons and practitioners of the arts in Cincinnati. The city's Industrial Expositions in the 1870's and 1880's featured well publicized showcases for Japanese art and culture, stimulating the interest of many thousands who did not ordinarily attend the frequent public lectures, exhibitions and sales, and displays of private collections all centering on Japanese subjects. After the final Industrial Ex- position in 1888, the Cincinnati Art Museum continued for many years a program rich in offerings designed to maintain the vitality of the Queen City's interest in Japanese art. The arts of Japan exerted a positive and enduring influence upon the di- rection of Rookwood and the decorative arts movement in Cincinnati. It would be difficult to exaggerate either the strength of this influence or the force of Rookwood's example upon the American Arts and Crafts Movement. As Japanese objects continue to come to light and as more documents per- tinent to the subject are discovered, the Japanese influence upon the arts in Cincinnati is certain to receive the scholarly attention it deserves.

KENNETH R. TRAPP, Curator of Education of the Cincinnati Art Museum, is a Ph.D. candidate in art history at the University of Illinois and has published several articles on the Japanese influence on Rookwood Pottery.

(1) For information about the influence of "Twelve dinner-plates, designed by Japanese art in Europe see Elizabeth Aslin, Bracquemond, once at Sevres, are good; The Aesthetic Movement: Prelude to Art but as they are simply imitations of Japa- Nouveau (New York, 1969); World nese birds and plants, one is again Cultures and Modern Art: The Encounter impelled to ask, Why should not this artist of 19th and 2.0th Century European Art have spent his strength upon the birds and and Music xvith Asia, Africa, Oceania, plants of France?" Little did Elliott realize Afro-and Indo-America, exhibition how pervasive Japonisme was in French catalogue on the occasion of the Games of industrial design. Nor could he know that the XXth Olympiad, Munich, 1972; Gabriel a taste for the Japanese would soon be- P. Weisberg, et al, Japonisme: Japanese come the fashionable rage in America. Influence on French Art 1854-1910, exhi- Three of the twelve plates from he Service bition catalogue, The Cleveland Museum Parisien were illustrated in Jennie L. of Art, The Rutgers University Art Gallery, Young, The Ceramic Art: A Compendium and The Walters Art Gallery, 1975. of the History and Manufacture of Pottery (2) Rose G. Kingsley, Rookwood Pottery, and Porcelain (New York, 1878), pp. 321- The Art Journal, XL, December 1897, 322. For more information about he p. 342. Service Parisien see Gabriel P. Weisberg, (3 ) Ibid. "Felix Bracquemond and Japanese Influ- (4) Charles Wyllys Elliott in "Pottery at ence in Ceramic Decoration," The Art the Centennial," Atlantic Monthly, Bulletin, LI, September 1969, pp. 277-280, XXXVIII, November 1876, p. 575, wrote: and Jean d'Albis and Celeste Romanet, ha Porcelain de Limoges, Paris, 1980. Art Museum. The Aladdin Vase is signed (5) George Ward Nichols, Art Education in black on the exterior surface "A.R. Applied to Industry (New York, 1877), Valentine/1833." Although born p. 203. "Valentine," he changed the spelling of (6) Hokusai's Manga, or Random his surname in the early 1880's to Sketches; Katsushika Isai's Kacho Sansui "Valentien." Zushiki, or Paintings of Flowers, Birds, All four vases share common stylistic Mountains, and Water; Yanagawa traits. Grotesque fish, marine creatures, Shigenobu's Ryusen Gafu-Jimbutsu, shells, and reptiles in varying heights of Gyochu no Bu, or The Book of Pictures- relief, and cloud-like swirls applied Parts of Figures, Fish and Insects by vigorously in slip, encircle the massive Yanagawa; and Kokon Meika Gafu, or vases. Fishing net in gilded relief com- Book of Paintings by Old and Modern pletes the decorative program of one Masters. Aladdin Vase. The repellent subject and The author is most grateful to Dr. Osamu heavy-handed execution of the decoration Ueda, Associate Curator of Oriental Art, create an overpowering visual impact. The Art Institute of Chicago, who helped (13) Mrs. Aaron F. Perry, "Decorative to identify the Japanese sources for the Pottery of Cincinnati," Harper's New designs in Pottery, How It Is Made. Monthly Magazine, LXII, April 1881, (7) See Loan Collection Exhibition, Pre- P-837- pared by The Women's Art Museum (14) "Mrs. Nichols' Pottery," Cincinnati Association of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Daily Gazette, August 22, 1881, p. 5. As 1878. with many Japanese names recorded in (8) Catalogue of the Yedo-Nausau Collec- English print, the name "Ichidsuka" is tion of the Choicest Japanese Works of problematic; according to scholars, the Art, exhibition and sale on and after May name is not correctly Japanese. A study of 13, 1878, Jacob Graff and Company, the papers of Minister John A. Bingham Cincinnati, p. [2], pamphlet, Cincinnati in the Ohio Historical Society failed to Historical Society. provide further information. (9) The original sepia-colored photograph (15) The Art Journal, N.S. VII, December is in the Cincinnati Art Museum Archives. 1881, p. 380. An attempt is made by Duke A vase of the same shape and decoration Coleman and Cliff R. Leonard in Rookwood as that in the center of the photograph is Pottery Potpourri, 1980, pp. 84-85, to in the Cincinnati Art Museum (1952.406). assign to Ichidsuka Kenzo and his un- (10 ) Exhibition of Japanese Art named assistant the ciphers of unknown Treasures, Ceramics of the Orient, Japanese decorators recorded by Stanley pamphlet, Cincinnati Historical Society. G. Burt in his 1916 holograph listing of (11) Alice C. Hall, "Cincinnati Faience," Rookwood then on loan to the Cincinnati Potter's American Monthly, XV, August Art Museum. Unfortunately, no substan- 1880, pp. 362-363. tial evidence supports this assignment. (12) It is believed that the Aladdin Vase (16) As quoted in Herbert Peck, The Book —Shape Number 1 in the Rookwood Shape of Rookwood Pottery (New York, 1968), Book (The Rookwood Collection, The P- 15- Cincinnati Historical Society), was (17) Because of her unpleasant relation- among the pieces drawn from the ship with Rookwood, Laura A. Fry may first kiln. Three Aladdin vases besides have chosen to donate her ceramic pieces the one pictured in the Shape Record to the then City Art Museum of St. Louis Book are known today; two are in private (now the St. Louis Art Museum) rather collections and one, decorated by Albert than to the Cincinnati Art Museum. In R. Valentine in 1883, is in the Cincinnati 1910, her father, William Henry Fry, had a

72 highly successful exhibition of his wood- were hardly considered worthy of serious carvings at the Art Museum in St. Louis. attention. Even before the Centennial A shallow dish given to the St. Louis Art closed, there came calls for Americans to Museum in 1911 by Laura A. Fry is deco- produce a uniquely "American" art. But rated with a variety of fish, crabs, a prawn, few, if any, had a clear idea of what an and insects. The designs were taken "American" art should be. The initial directly from Shigenobu's Ryusen Gafu phase of the Arts and Crafts Movement in The second example of transfer printing America was heavily influenced by is a circular plate in the Philadelphia European and Japanese designs. In 1885, Museum of Art. It too is decorated with five years after its founding, Rookwood's designs from the Ryusen Gafu. wares were not distinctively American, so (18) "Cincinnati Reports," Crockery and indebted was the pottery to Japanese, Glass Journal, September 1882, p. 46. French, and English art. (19) Illustrated Catalogue of the Art (25) Mr. S. G. Burt's Record Book of Ware Department. Cincinnati Industrial Expo- at Art Museum, 2,292 pieces of early sition 1882, Cincinnati, 1882, n. p. Rookwood Pottery in the Cincinnati Art ( 20 ) A photocopy of this advertisement is Museum in 1916 (The Cincinnati Histori- in the author's possession. cal Society, 1978), p. 46. The original Burt (21) "Art Pottery," Cincinnati Daily holograph is in The Cincinnati Historical Gazette, October 7, 1880, p. 8. Examples Society. of Nancy ceramics and other European art (26) "Chat on Japan," Cincinnati Daily potteries were displayed in the Industrial Times-Star, March 2, 1886, p. 6. For more Exposition of 1879. "The Exposition," information about Morse see Money Cincinnati Enquirer, September 27, 1879, Hickman and Peter Fetchko, Japan Day by p. 7. Day: an Exhibition in Honor of Edward (22) William Watts Taylor to Gordon Sylvester Morse, exhibition catalogue, Shillito, Cincinnati, Ohio, July 9, 1887, Peabody Museum of Salem, Letter Book I (December 23, 1886- Massachusetts, 1977. October 11,1887), p. 319, Mitchell (27) [Elizabeth Williams Perry], A Sketch Memorial Library, Mississippi State Uni- of the Women's Art Museum Association versity, Starkville, Mississippi. Even Mrs. of Cincinnati 1877-1886 (Cincinnati, Storer acknowledged Galle's influence on 1886),p. 125. Rookwood. In a letter of September 4, 1893 (28) Dorothy G. Wayman, Edward to Mary Louise McLaughlin she wrote that Sylvester Morse: A Biography (Cambridge, "some older French works, and Galle are Massachusetts, 1942), p. 306. more responsible for Rookwood." (29) The Storer Collection of Japanese (23) The Rookwood Record Museum was pottery was recalled from the Art Museum dispersed decades ago. William Watts in 1976 by Mrs. Storer's grandson, Jean- Taylor, who died in 1913, bequeathed to Pierre, Marquis de Chambrun, and was the Cincinnati Art Museum his art pottery sold at auction in London in 1978. See collection containing several unidentified Sotheby Parke Bernet & Co., London, pieces, one an apparent European imita- Japanese Pottery, Porcelain, Netsuke and tion of Rookwood. Taylor's bequest to the Lacquer including a Collection of Pottery, Art Museum deserves study in itself. February 22, 1978. (24) "Ceramic Enterprise in Cincinnati," (30) Letter, April 26,1886 from Professor The Art Amateur, XIV, December 1885, Edward S. Morse to General Alfred T. p. 19. Although the Centennial Exhibition Goshorn, Cincinnati Art Museum Library, proved America was equal to European Archives, Director's Correspondence, 1886, nations in technological advancements, Folder L-N, letter M-12. the nation's industrial artistic productions (31) Sylvester Baxter, "The Morse Collec- tion of Japanese Pottery," reprint from

73 The American Architect, May 28, 1877, sented problems for Americans. What an Salem, Massachusetts, Essex Institute, American would consider Shirayamadani's 1887, p. 16. given, or first, name is spelled three ways (32) The Storer fukusas and painted in the literature: Kataro, Ketaro and scrolls were recalled from the Art Museum Kitaro. To avoid the spelling altogether, by Mrs. Storer's heirs in 1980. frequently his name appears merely as (33) For more information about the three "K. Shirayamadani." Virginia Cummins, Henri J. M. Pottier pieces given to the who knew Shirayamadani, tells me he Museum by the Women's Art Museum spelled his name "Kataro." The spelling Association see Kenneth R. Trapp, "Henri "Kitaro" appears on Shirayamadani's J. M. Pottier: A Rediscovered French death certificate in City Hall, Cincinnati. Japonisme Decorator in the Cincinnati Art Death certificates are not, however, always Museum," The Decorative Arts Newsletter, reliable documents, as even Shirayama- III (Winter 1977-1978), pp. 3-8. dani's proves. In October 1897, Shirayama- (34) [Deakin Brothers and Company], dani united with The First Church of Trip Through Japan. Dai Nippon Haku- Christ, Scientist, in Boston and Cincinnati. rankai and Temple of the Arts and In the union his name is typed "Kitaro," Industries of Japan, [San Francisco?], although he signed it simply "K. Shira- 1885, n. p. Louise Revol, Associate Curator yamadani." To confuse matters even more, of History, The Oakland Museum, sent the I have been told that the spelling "Kitaro" author a copy of this program, as well as is correctly Japanese while the other vari- copies of clippings from various news- ations are not. Interestingly, there seems papers in cities which hosted the to be no documented spelling of Shira- "Japanese Village." yamadani's first name by him. (35) Ibid. (40) William Watts Taylor to Y. Tomita, (36) From a newspaper clipping (author's Washington, D. C, 10 March 1887, Letter possession) entitled "Crowding the Japs," Book I, MSU Library, p. 109. Yadama was no city, no date, no page. Only the name a painter with the "Japanese Village." "Shirayamadani" is listed. The name Correspondence from Louise Revol to the "Haigo Masuo" appears in the Japanese author June 7, 1978. manner and not as "Masuo Haigo." The (41) William Watts Taylor to W. H. Oakland Museum in California has a Smyth, Atlanta, Georgia, October 4, 1887, scrapbook of memorabilia from the Letter Book I, MSU Library, p. 480. Frederick Deakin family with two water- (42) Unfortunately, only a very few of colors, one by Haigo Masuo and the other the books, periodicals, photographs, and by Shirayamadani. other material from Rookwood's extensive (37) Ida M. Tarbell, "The Arts and Indus- library have survived. A private collection tries of Cincinnati" The Chautauquan, of material from that library includes the VII, December 1886, p. 162. English edition of Bing's Artistic Japan. (38) Burt's Record Book, p. 57. In the rush It is stamped "ROOKWOOD POTTERY." to catalogue the vast collection of Rook- (43) Wilbur Stout, "Art Pottery," in wood on loan to the Art Museum, it is Chapter 1 of "History of the Clay Industry probable that Burt failed to think to ask in Ohio," in Geological Survey of Ohio, Shirayamadani to translate the Japanese Bulletin 26 (1923), p. 92. signatures or to ask him who M. Haigo was. (44) William Watts Taylor to Messrs. C. (39) William Watts Taylor to Louis Hennecke and Company, Chicago, Illinois, Wertheimer, Boston, Massachusetts, May December 12, 1890, Letter Book V 4,1887, Letter Book I, Mississippi State October 31,1890, July 10,1891), MSU University Library, pp. 183-184. The spell- Library, p. 86. ing of both Shirayamadani's names pre- (45) Catalogue of Objects Loaned by

74 Mr. John W. Book-waiter, to the Cincinnati (48) Special Exhibition of One Hundred Museum Association, Cincinnati Art Mu- Colored Photographs of Japanese Subjects seum, loan exhibition catalogue, 1901, Carefully Selected by Mr. K. Shirayama- PP- 53-75- Examples of knife handles, dani, October 7-31, 1900, Cincinnati Art sword guards, ferrules for sword handles, Museum, announcement, 1900. and clips for sword handles from the (49) Cincinnati Art Museum Purchases, Bookwalter Collection were accessioned p. 80, Registration Department, Cincinnati by the Art Museum in 1919. Art Museum. (46) Catalogue of Japanese Paintings and (50) Ibid., p. 78 ff. Color Prints Exhibited in the Art Museum, (51) Cincinnati Art Museum Donations Cincinnati, from the First to the Fifteenth 1881-1913, p. 137, Registration Depart- of March, 1896, Cincinnati Art Museum, ment, Cincinnati Art Museum. exhibition catalogue, 1896. (52) Ibid., p. 149. (47) Peck, Rookwood Pottery, p. 54.

George T. Marsh and Company and other firms advertised in the Illustrated Catalogue of the Art Department. Cincinnati Industrial Exposition 1882.