Rookwood and the JapaneseMania in Cincinnati

by Kenneth Trapp

I ntroduced to the arts of Japan at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, theAmerican public quickly developed a near-manic taste for things Japa-

nese. Just as the English and the French two decades earlier had warmlyembraced Japanese themes and styles, Americans now found an irresistiblecharm in the art from the exotic Land of the Rising Sun.1 A virtual Japanesefever swept America, burning most intensely and with indelible effect inthe 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 artsmovement which began to flower in the Queen City in the late 1870's. Withthe founding of the Rookwood pottery in 1880, the powerful influence ofJapanese art upon Cincinnati's decorators was soon to become a matter ofnationwide note and emulation.

While the Japanese influence upon Rookwood is commonly acknowledgedby authorities on the pottery, only recently has there been an attempt tostudy the subject with some thoroughness. The dispersion of documents, apaucity of examples, and the complex nature of the subject have doubtlessimpeded 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 deco-rators. Involved and important as this task is, it does not, however, focusupon the larger picture: the context of the Japanese mania in Cincinnatiand in America and the effects the Japanese influence had upon the artisticand technical developments of Rookwood pottery.

Many questions persist. Why are there so few examples of Rookwoodwhich exhibit forms or decorations drawn from traceable Japanese sources?What kinds of Japanese art were being collected in Cincinnati in the latenineteenth century? These two questions lead to a third: To what extentwere nineteenth-century American conceptions of Japanese art predeter-mined by Western aesthetics and predilections and to. what extent did theJapanese 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 ofEuropean Japonisme decorators? While the answers—if indeed there areanswers—to these questions are beyond the scope of this paper, nonethelessan 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 thetaste of Mrs. Maria Longworth Nichols (became Mrs. Bellamy Storer in1886), the founder of the pottery. In 1875, Mrs. Nichols was given "somelittle Japanese books of designs" which a friend had brought her from Lon-don. Perhaps the books had been purchased from the orientalia shop onRegent Street which Arthur Lasenby Liberty had opened in May of thatyear. Mrs. (Nichols) Storer said of these books in an 1897 article publishedin the Art Journal: "This . . . was almost my first acquaintance with Japa-nese Art of the imaginative and suggestive kind. It prepared me for thewonderful beauty of the Japanese exhibit at the Philadelphia CentennialExposition of 1876."2

While attending the Centennial, Mrs. Nichols became captivated by theJapanese exhibits. Shown for the first time in America in great quantity,the Japanese ceramics, bronzes, lacquer work, and screens fired in her "adesire to have a place of my own where things could be made." She sug-gested to her father, Joseph Longworth, that a Japanese pottery—workmenand all—might be brought over.3 He was not thrilled with the suggestion.

Undoubtedly, Mrs. Nichols would have seen the Haviland and Companyof Limoges, France, exhibits of faience painted under the glaze, works whichgreatly inspired another Cincinnatian, Mary Louise McLaughlin. Includedin the Haviland display was Felix Bracquemond's he Service Parisien.4Strongly suggestive of Japanese imagery, the lyrical decorations of the ser-vice 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 toIndustry, 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 awide and positive influence upon American art industries, an influencemore immediate and enduring in its action than that of any one coun-try, or perhaps of all the countries combined, which exhibited at theCentennial Exposition.5

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

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s

• « - •

The designs on the cover of Pottery, How It Is Made byGeorge Ward Nichols in 1878 were compiled anddrawn by Maria Longworth Nichols, wife of the author.

designs for decoration after the Japanese in Pottery, How It Is Made. Thedrawings for the latter volume were copied, directly or through secondarysources, from at least four Japanese books of illustrations.6

Perhaps Mrs. Nichols compiled her drawings for Pottery, How It Is Madefrom 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 ofher Japanese books.

By 1878, the interest in Japanese art in Cincinnati had reached a feveredpitch. The Women's Art Museum Association (1877-1886) opened a LoanExhibition 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, carvingsin wood, swords, cloisonne, and musical instruments were shown. The selec-tion of Japanese art was clearly decorative. Interestingly, the Loan Exhibi-tion catalogue listed no Japanese scrolls, screens, illustrated books, or woodblock prints. Sixteen pieces of Japanese art from the collection of GeorgeWard Nichols were exhibited, as were several examples of Japanese art fromthe Joseph Longworth collection.7

On May 13, 1878, a major exhibition and sale of Japanese art took placein Cincinnati. The sale catalogue, which listed 433 works of art, includedthis puffery:

Rare examples of all the choicest Potteries, Porcelains Cloissone ]sic[on Copper and Porcelain, rare old Bronzes, Ivory Carvings, pure Goldand Ancient Cinnabar Lacquers will be found here. Nothing finer canbe 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 intenseinterest in Japanese art in the Queen City in the late 1870's. The Nicholsesmight 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 tomake and fire pieces for Nichols. Her earliest decorated pottery was stronglyJapanese in spirit. Typifying her pre-Rookwood Japanese decoration arethree pieces —two large vases and a short bottle vase.9

A second major exhibition and sale of Japanese and Far Eastern art oc-curred in Cincinnati in May 1880. The sale catalogue listed 309 separateentries, comprising mostly ceramics which included Awata, Bishu, Hizen,Imari, Kaga, Ota, Owari, and Satsuma. Many of the ceramic pieces weredescribed as being decorated with flowers, birds in flight, bamboo and birds,foliage, insects, and delicate blue clouding. 10 Such natural subjects hadparticular appeal to the pottery decorators and wood carvers of Cincinnati.

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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, richlygilded, and coiled it may be, around the bottom or near the top, whereit is made to form quaint handles, while the introduction of one or twodroll figures in human shape, give [sic] these vases a decidely Japaneseappearance.11

In the summer of 1880, Mrs. Nichols founded her own pottery in a formerschoolhouse at 207 Eastern Avenue. Named "Rookwood' after her childhoodhome in bucolic East Walnut Hills, her small pottery would, she hoped,achieve a prominence in ceramics equal to that of Wedgwood. The first kilnwas drawn on Thanksgiving Day. Although the contents of the kiln are amatter 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 herown distinctively primitive style. Grotesque subjects, often treated humor-ously, predominated. Dragons, gaping-mouthed fish with bulging eyes, crabsand other crustaceans, marine creatures, leaping and dancing frogs, march-ing crickets, spiders in their webs, flying bats, and owls perched on brancheswith a full moon as a back drop were painted and modeled with vigorousnaivete. More lyrical interpretations of common Japanese decorative motifsincluded sprays of flowers, leafy bamboo and berries, flying swallows, andcranes. Imitations of Japanese calligraphy often enhanced a decorativescheme.

Elizabeth Perry succinctly described Mrs. Nichols' decorative work in an1881 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, monstersof the air and water, bamboo, etc., decorated in high relief, under glazecolor, incised design, and an overglaze enrichment of gold.13

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

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as the standard method of decorating pottery at Rookwood, involved thepainting of green—or still moist—ceramic forms with colored slips—liquidclay. Ideally, the clay form and slip decoration would dry uniformly, creatinga single piece. After the first, or bisque, firing a piece was usually covered witha clear or tinted glaze to bring forth the brilliance of the slip paintingunderneath.

Joseph Nichols Hirschfeld and Matthew Daly, two other decorators hiredin the early years of Rookwood, had received their initial training in potterydecoration at the Matt Morgan Art Pottery Company, a local rival of Rook-wood equally eclectic in its decorative styles. A conservative Japanesquedecorative 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, sometimeseven indistinguishable. It was not long, however, before Valentien and Dalydeveloped their own individual styles. Under the influence of the Japanese,both men decorated some of the most exquisite examples of Rookwood in the1880'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 fellowOhioan, the diplomat John A. Bingham. The Cincinnati Daily Gazette onAugust 22, 1881 reported that Mrs. Nichols was seeking to employ aJapanese pottery decorator to teach in the "Rookwood School for PotteryDecoration."

The art classes to open at the pottery this autumn are exciting wide in-terest, to which fresh impetus is given by the expected arrival of theJapanese artist Ichidsuka Kenzo, whose services Mrs. Nichols has se-cured through Minister Bingham. The artist, his tools, his materials,and an assistant will arrive in late September, and are secured, ofcourse, at a great outlay of money. Kenzo leaves his country by specialpermission of his government, and is, we learn, the only artist of highrank possessing the secrets of the potter's art who has received suchpermission.14

The Art Journal of December 1881 reported that a Japanese decoratorhad been engaged by Rookwood.15 It is probable that this report was derivedfrom the earlier Daily Gazette article. Research has failed to verify the arrivalof Kenzo and his assistant or any other Japanese decorator at Rookwood in1881. It is most unlikely that the arrival of a Japanese decorator—indeed ofany Japanese—in Cincinnati at that time would have escaped notice.

Three vases by Maria LongworthNichols, 1880, potted and decorated atthe Frederick Dallas Pottery on HamiltonRoad (now McMicken Avenue). Theoriginal photograph of these vases whichis in the archives of the Cincinnati ArtMuseum is inscribed: "To Mr. A.T.Goshorn with kind regards of Geo WardNichols May 1880."

William Watts Taylorbegan recording the shapedesigns in 1883 in a ledgercalled the Rookwood ShapeBook. This Aladdin Vase wasthe first entry. Although thedecorator of the vase isunknown, it is most probablythe work of Mrs. Nichols andmay have been among thepieces fired in the firstRookwood kiln in late 1880.

Much of the first year's production by Rookwood consisted of commercialwares—breakfast and dinner services, pitchers, wine coolers, ice tubs, andumbrella stands—not usually identified by a Rookwood mark. These com-mercial wares were intended to increase revenue in order to sustain the costof creating the more expensive artistic pieces. Hoping to keep productioncost of the commercial wares to a minimum, Mrs. Nichols introduced trans-fer printing in 1881. Clara Chipman Newton, secretary to Mrs. Nichols andone 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 moreeconomical basis than was at first supposed possible, and the designsof birds, fishes, lobsters, etc., carefully selected from Japanese bookswere prepared.16

Apparently this line of ware proved too expensive or unpopular, for onlytwo examples of Rookwood's transfer printing are known.17

The September 12, 1882 Crockery and Glass Journal reported that a "cele-brated Japanese decorator with an unpronounceable name"18 was to arriveat Rookwood. This report may have referred to Ichidsuka Kenzo, whoseservices had been sought by Mrs. Nichols a year earlier.

Of the Japanese illustrated books known to have been used by Rookwooddecorators, Hokusafs Manga seems to have been the most popular and offersone of the rare instances in which an actual source of decorative motifs canbe documented. The Manga, a compact fifteen-volume encyclopedic workillustrating Japanese flora, fauna, imaginary creatures, folklore and legends,grotesqueries, and manners and customs, was used widely by French artistsin the late nineteenth century. Hokusai's lively illustrations offered a richvariety of fascinating subjects. The Cincinnati Art Museum has three earlypieces of Rookwood decorated wth motifs inspired by, if not copied directlyfrom, the Manga. Not surprisingly, two of the pieces were decorated byMrs. Nichols. Her use of Japanese motifs represents the Japanese influenceat its most imitative. Mrs. Nichols was particularly drawn to the grotesqueelements in Japanese art, copying designs crudely, rather than absorbing thelessons in delicacy to be learned from Japanese art.

By 1883 it was evident that Rookwood required the leadership of a busi-ness manager if the pottery were to become independent. That year Mrs.Nichols hired William Watts Taylor as general business manager to placethe fledgling pottery on a sound financial and artistic course. One of Taylor'sfirst measures was to record the shapes produced by Rookwood and toanalyze the sales of these shapes, determining whether they were successfulor not. To this end, Taylor had Clara Chipman Newton enter the shapesproducd up to then into a ledger called the Rookwood Shape Record Book,

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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 sourceof the shape, its decorator or decorators, its method of manufacture, whetherpress molded, cast or thrown, and its sales record complete many of theentries, in particular those shapes recorded the earliest. The Shape RecordBook documents the eclecticism of Rookwood in its formative period. More-over, the Shape Book reveals the extent and nature of the Japanese influenceupon Rookwood. Pieces from Nichols' collection frequently served as proto-types. Among the numerous designs listed as being influenced by Japaneseexamples 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 obtainedher Japanese art objects, it was not necessary for her to leave Cincinnati tosecure them. Besides important auctions of Japanese held in the city in the1870's and 1880's, retailers in luxury goods carried Japanese art. EmeryH: Barton, dealer in artists' materials, pictures, and picture frames locatedat 17 Emery Arcade, advertised in 1882 "Japanese Scrolls, & c." among otherworks of art.19 The George T. Marsh and Company of San Francisco, animporter and dealer in Japanese antiquities, curiosities and novelties, main-tained a branch in Cincinnati from 1881 to 1883. Interestingly, in an 1883advertisement in Beauties of California, Marsh and Company listed its fivebranches: Yokohama, Tokio and Hiogo in Japan and Cincinnati and SanFrancisco in the United States.20 That Marsh and Company consideredCincinnati important enough to open a branch here was a testament to thestrong interest in Japanese art in the Queen City.

It is apparent that the Japanese influence on Rookwood in its early yearsderived in part from contemporary European ceramics, in particular thefaience 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,

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and with exquisite decoration, by Galle."21 The Rookwood Shape RecordBook records four entries modeled after "Nancy ware:" Shape Number 102,crushed vases; Shape Number 107, a vase; Shape Number n o , a crushedpitcher; and Shape Number 115, another crushed pitcher. The four Nancyware prototypes which Rockwood copied were provided by Robert H. Gal-breath, principal agent for Duhme and Company, another Cincinnati re-tailer in luxury goods. There is no doubt that "Nancy ware" in fact refers tothe pottery of Galle. Rookwood produced imitative pieces with shapes anddecorations 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 toGordon 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 whateverto Mr. G. But I would like you, if not too much trouble . . . see thegentleman on your return, to assure him that he is under an entirelymistaken impression.

Taylor ends by writing "I dislike to have Rookwood classed among the'pirates' who are making careful reproductions of European work and callingit 'American' art."22

Taylor appears to have willfully misunderstood Galle's complaint. Gallebelieved that Rookwood was copying not his mark but his forms and style, asin fact that pottery had done from 1881 to 1883 before Taylor arrived atRookwood. From Taylor's letter it seems clear that Galle and Gordon Shillitoknew each other. Shillito may have shown Galle examples of Rookwood'simitations of the Nancy artist's faience.

During a three year period from 1883 to 1886 several events occurredwhich led to the development of a distinctive Rookwood style and brought theformative period of the firm to an end. In 1883, Laura A. Fry adapted themouth atomizer as an instrument to apply an even-colored slip ground togreen ware. Grounds of different colors could be laid one over the other tocreate delicate graduations. This technical innovation permitted the blend-ing of slip-painted decorations with an atmospheric ground and led almostat 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 simpleforms. The slight relief of the underglaze slip painting was suggestive ofJapanese lacquer decoration.

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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 andCameo 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 andmysterious. 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 courseblossoms and plants.

The accidental creation of an aventurine glaze in 1884, named TigerEye, set the pottery on a course of experiments. Clay bodies, applied deco-rations, shape designs, and glazes were tested to achieve the most pleasingvisual effects and to reduce the high risks of damage or destruction in firing.Examples of other art potteries, both American and European, were widelystudied, and a Record Museum of Rookwood's own productions was estab-lished as an archive. There is reason to believe that examples of Japaneseceramics were also collected by Rookwood for study purposes.23

The Art Amateur of December 1885 reported that Mrs. Nichols "has sentto Japan for a native decorator of high reputation . . . ." The anonymouswriter admonishes Mrs. Nichols to refrain from producing Japanese potteryin America.

In congratulating this lady on the latest evidence of her enterpriseand good judgment, we venture to hope that she will insist that a dis-tinctive American character be given to her ware. It will be a seriousmistake if the artist who is to be brought here is required to do nothingbut make Japanese pottery in America.24

The writer was very much aware of the influence which Japanese art hadalready exerted upon the youthful pottery. In a shop on Broadway he hadseen a Rookwood teapot priced at $2.50, and a few doors farther down hehad seen a Japanese teapot of almost exactly the same shape priced at only50 cents.

A slender bit of information in Stanley G. Burt's holograph of 1916 listingthe 2,292 pieces of Rookwood pottery then on loan to the Cincinnati ArtMuseum 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 withJap[Japanese] letters and signature M.Haigo Rookwood 1885-28 D.25

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

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This page from the Osui Gafu-Nihen by AsaiOsui was obtained for the Cincinnati ArtMuseum through the Edwin and Virginialrwin Memorial.

On September ig, 1886, the CincinnatiEnquirer announced the arrival of the"Japanese Village" for the ThirteenthCincinnati Industrial Exposition.

for example, that the dish was both potted and decorated in 1885, althoughslip painting at Rookwood customarily followed shortly after the creation ofa form. A Rookwood teajar in a private collection bears the impressed dateof 1885 but is signed and dated "M.H./1886." This jar, painted in blue overthe glaze with foliate arabesques, may have been decorated by M. Haigo whowas trained in decorating ceramics over the glaze.

Burt's entry for the dish creates confusion in that the number 28D doesnot 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 vasemodeled 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 ofthe traveling "Japanese Village" which appeared at the Industrial Exposition.

The Japanese mania in Cincinnati climaxed in 1886, and the formativeperiod of the Rookwood Pottery came to a close. In March of that yearProfessor Edward S. Morse, a noted traveler, author, scholar, and Japano-phile, delivered four lectures in Cincinnati on Japanese subjects. The thirdlecture, presented on March 9, covered Japanese painting, pottery, teaceremonies, ceramics, and drawing schools. Professor Morse was the guestof 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 thegala celebrations leading up to the opening of the Cincinnati Art Museumin its newly-constructed building in Eden Park. On March 13, 1886, theWomen'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 vaseswhich were entered in the Shape Book as Numbers 272 and 273. These wereslight variations of the same Japanese form: a thrown small ovoid body witha wide, flowing, and flared lip.

Morse's sojourn in Cincinnati was not wholly devoted to lecturing andattending social affairs occasioned by the marriage of his hostess to BellamyStorer on March 10: it was also a matter of business. By the time Morsereturned to Salem, Massachusetts, Mrs. Storer had purchased from himsome 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 ShapeBook in April 1886 reads: "From shape in Mrs. Storer's Morse Collection."Mrs. Storer lent her Japanese pottery collection to the Cincinnati Art Museumini888.29

Desperate for money, Morse offered to sell a collection of Japanese tea-jars to the Cincinnati Art Museum. In a letter of April 26, 1886 to GeneralAlfred T. Goshorn, Director of the Art Museum, Morse wrote:

I have lately had intrusted [sic] to me a large collection of Japanesetea jars with their brocade bags and boxes. Most of them are duplicatedin my collection . . . . The bulk of them I must dispose of and rather tohave them go in smaller lots to private parties it has occurred to me thatpossibly your museum might take the larger number about 150 at theprice of eleven hundred dollars.30

Morse added that if 150 were too many he could offer a lot of 100 for $600or an even smaller lot of fifty for $500. Morse acknowledged Mrs. Storer'sdesire 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 backthe tea jars at the price paid for them." The Museum did not purchase theteajars, either because it lacked funds or, more probably, because Mrs. Storermade known her intention to lend her collection to the Museum.

Mrs. Storer held Morse's collection of Japanese pottery in such high esteemthat she sent Laura A. Fry and Albert R. Valentien, two of Rookwood's mostaccomplished decorators, to Salem, where they "spent several days in mak-ing drawings of a few attractive pieces . . . . "31 Shape Numbers 136, 275,305 and 307 were inspired by pottery in the Morse Collection. In turn, in1888, Morse sent suggestions for shape designs based on Japanese proto-types, and these were entered in the Shape Book. Other Japanese-inspiredshape designs came from friends and business acquaintances of Mrs. Storerand 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 1888and several painted silk scrolls. The birds, flowers, plants, aquatic life, andother decorative subjects on the fukusas and scrolls represented a catalogueof similar subjects used by Rookwood decorators of the period.32 Mrs. Storer'scollection of Japanese art on loan to the Art Museum was accessible to theRookwood decorators, who doubtless were encouraged to avail themselves ofthe works.

Shortly before the opening of the Cincinnati Art Museum in May 1886,the Women's Art Museum Association disbanded, its goal of establishing anart museum with a training school having been achieved. One of the lastpieces donated to the Art Museum by the Association was a small vaseexecuted by the French Japonisme decorator Henri J. M. Pottier.33 The twogeese and six flying swallows on the vase were copied directly from a singlepage of birds and fowl in volume 4 of Hokusai's Manga. This gift under-scored the interest in contemporary European ceramics and Japanese artin Cincinnati.

The Japanese mania in Cincinnati continued to a frenzied pitch in late1886 with the arrival of the Deakin Brothers and Company's "JapaneseVillage" on September 19. The featured attraction of the Thirteenth Cincin-

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nati Industrial Exposition, the Village was composed of some sixty to seventymen, women, and children plying their trades and demonstrating theircrafts. In the prologue to the program of events appeared the following self-congratulations : "The finest skilled labor in Japan has been selected topeople this little Japanese village, and native materials have been speciallygathered—doors, mats, samples, ware and tools, of a thousand descriptions-amounting in all to fifty tons, the whole being transported and produced inits present condition at enormous expense." The prologue further pro-claimed the Village "a stupendous enterprise, and as a result cannot fail tomark a new era in its impress upon the American public, which for the firsttime gazes upon the revealed secrets of Japanese art."34 Between 1885 and1887 the Village traveled throughout the United States, making stops inMilwaukee, 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 separateartistic occupations, events, and areas. A visitor could view potters and mod-elers, pottery and porcelain decorators, cabinet makers, silk weavers andembroiderers, 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 Villageperformed 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 atHakone Sekisho (gateway) on the Tokaido (government road) at the footof the Hakone mountain pass. In centuries past, Japanese subjects could nottravel without passports. To travel to Kyoto (Kioto), the old Capital, onehad to pass several gateways along the Tokaido. As the artists had no pass-ports, they had to perform their skills in order to pass safely through eachgateway. 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 porcelainis 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 ofimporting a Japanese pottery—workmen and all—to Cincinnati. While theJapanese Village did not fulfill this dream it did the next best thing by bring-ing together in one place a group of potters, modelers, and ceramic deco-rators.

The Japanese Village was not an attraction which could go unnoticed byRookwood's technicians and decorators. Indeed, the Village presented a su-perb opportunity for Rookwood artists and craftsmen to compare their ce-ramic techniques with traditional Japanese methods. In an article published

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in The Chautauquan of 1886, a potter at Rookwood made reference to theVillage when he asked the author: " 'Have you seen the Jap clay modeler atthe Expo? Do you see how differently I work from him?' "37 Moreover, thereis reason to believe that members of the Village were invited to Rookwoodto decorate pottery, a courtesy the company came to extend to visiting dig-nitaries. In Burt's holograph, under the year 1886, appears the followingterse 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 pot-tery decorators in the Village to demonstrate their skills in underglaze slippainting. It seems more than mere coincidence that Shirayamadani shouldarrive at Rookwood six months following the appearance of the Village inCincinnati. Furthermore, except for the year 1885, Burt lists no pieces ofRookwood decorated by unknown Japanese.

The arrival of the Japanese Village in 1886 marked the climax of theJapanese mania in Cincinnati and signaled a second phase in Rookwood'scourting of Japanese art. The direct imitation of Japanese shapes and deco-rative motifs, already on the wane, ceased. Floral subjects rendered in ahighly naturalistic manner and sometimes stylized became the predominatesubject matter. Japanese art was no longer treated as an exotic curiosity;rather, the lessons to be learned from Japanese art were assimilated into themainstream of the Rockwood aesthetic.

After Mrs. Nichols' marriage to Bellamy Storer in 1886, following thedeath of George Ward Nichols the previous year, she relinquished her com-manding interest in Rookwood, leaving the operation of the pottery in thecapable hands of William Watts Taylor.

On May 3, 1887, Mrs. Storer's dream of having a Japanese decorator atRookwood came true. On that date Kataro Shirayamadani arrived at Rook-wood. He came to Cincinnati from Boston, his services having been securedthrough the help of Louis Wertheimer, a Boston dealer in Oriental art. OnMay 4,1887 William Watts Taylor wrote to Wertheimer:

The young Japanese arrived yesterday before your letter but foundhis way here without difficulty.

One of our decorators has found quarters for him temporarily in hisboarding home.

Mrs. Storer and the writer are quite pleased with his appearance andmanners and the experiment seems quite worthwhile to make.

We have thought best to put him at once at underglaze painting (inthe wet clay) because the technique requires practice. . . . Moreover,

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In 1898 the RookwoodPottery donated to theCincinnati Art Museum208 Japanese teapots.

Mrs. Henrietta Haller gave Ryusen Gafu-Jimbutsu, Gyochu no Bu by YanagawaShigeiiobu, ca. 182,0, to the Cincinnati ArtMuseum.

Mrs. Storefs feeling is that it would be little object to have him merelyreproduce the overglaze work here which is so much better and morecheaply done in Japan. What we want is the merit of their painting de-veloped under our conditions—in short Japanese Rookwood [author'semphasis].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 Rookwoodcould not employ a Mr. Yamada.40 It is probable that by March 1887, if notearlier, Rookwood was endeavoring to engage Shirayamadani. DoubtlessShirayamadani had left the Village in Boston to find reliable employment. Itwas not uncommon for members of the Village to leave the troop along theway for this very purpose.

Six months after his arrival at Rookwood, Sharayamadani's decoratedwork was introduced to the public. In October 1887, examples of his deco-rated Rookwood were premiered at the Piedmont Exposition in Atlanta.Shirayamadani's pieces were marked with an "X" to distinguish them fromthe work of other decorators.41

In his correspondence, especially with Rookwood's agents, Taylor lost nochance to promote Shirayamadani. Moreover, Taylor included references tothe young Japanese decorator in the pottery's advertisements in popularAmerican magazines. That Rookwood had the good fortune to employ aJapanese decorator was indeed a coup to be celebrated. Within a short timeShirayamadani became one of Rookwood's principal decorators. While heseems to have produced perceptible "Japanese" influence upon the otherdecorators, the conception and exquisite refinement of his decorations aswell as his mere presence no doubt inspired the decorating staff.

One of the most striking features of Rookwood in the mid-1880's was theturn to nature for almost all decorative subjects. To assist the decorators,Rookwood maintained a library of watercolor sketches, drawings, photo-graphs, clippings, periodicals, and books. Among the periodicals to whichRookwood subscribed was S. Bing's Artistic Japan.42 Decorators were en-couraged to keep their own sketchbooks and designs. Rookwood requiredthat its decorators be proficient in oil and watercolor painting, especiallythe latter, because slip painting demanded accuracy, a steady hand, andabove all speed.

Rookwood decorators frequently went directly to nature for subject mat-ter. On Saturdays in the late 1880's, decorators were often invited to theJapanese water-lily and lotus pond laid out by Reuben Warden on his estateat North Bend, an outlying district near Cincinnati.43 After Rookwood movedits 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

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studio, freshly cut flowers and plants were regularly studied and copied. Bythe early 1890's Rookwood decorators were using two hundred flowers andplants as decorative subjects and were adding to this number constantly.44

Rookwood won its first major international recognition in 1889 at theParis Exposition Universelle when its wares were awarded a Gold Medal.That French critics faulted the pottery for its dependence on the Japaneseseems ironic in light of the continuing strength of Japanese influence uponFrench decorative art. Following the award of the Gold Medal and the con-comitant publicity, Rookwood gained financial solvency after a decade ofsubsidization 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 theattractions of Japanese art had ceased to be novel, and the influence exertedby Japan had been assimilated into the mainstream of American art.Whereas the Industrial Expositions of the late 1870's and 1880's had fannedthe flame of the Japanese mania in the Queen City, in the last decade of thenineteenth century and early years of the twentieth century the CincinnatiArt 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 acceptingmany gifts and loans of Japanese and other oriental art. In 1887, one yearafter 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 in-terest in Japanese art through its schedule of temporary exhibitions. In 1896the Art Museum exhibited in two separate displays 735 Japanese paintingsand color prints from the W. H. Ketcham Collection.46 During this exhibi-tion, Rookwood engaged Professor Ernest F. Fenollosa, an authority onJapanese art and an advisor to W. H. Ketcham, to deliver a lecture for thebenefit 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 thegalleries in which the Ketcham Collection was shown.

A second exhibition of Japanese art opened at the Museum in October of1900.48 One hundred colored photographs of Japanese subjects carefullyselected by K. Shirayamadani were shown to the public. The following yearthe Art Museum purchased eleven of the photographs of temples, gardens,and architecture in Tokyo from Shirayamadani.49 During the last twodecades 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 theArt Museum, serving terms on the Classifications Committee, which voted

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on the purchase of works of art. Although funds for acquisitions were mod-est, the Museum regularly purchased Japanese color prints from 1897 to theFirst World War.so Undoubtedly, Taylor had an influential voice in thesepurchases. Moreover, as a Museum trustee Taylor could keep the Rookwooddecorators informed of purchases which might be of particular interest.

Rookwood Pottery regularly presented the Art Museum with examples ofits productions in the 1890's. Furthermore, by 1916 Rookwood had on loanto the Museum some 2,300 pieces of its pottery dating from 1880 to thatyear. In 1898, Rookwood donated a collection of 208 Japanese teapots to theMuseum "with the understanding that the donor may from time to timeborrow pieces for study at the Pottery".51 Two years later Rookwood pre-sented the Museum with a second gift of Japanese ceramics, this time 312vases, incense burners, teajars, bottles, and wine cup stands.52

From 1894 to 1915 Rookwood regularly introduced new glaze and deco-rative lines in order to appeal to a larger buying public, and of course, toremain ahead of the Pottery's imitators and competitors. Within a threemonth period in 1894, three new glaze lines were rapidly introduced. TheIris and Sea Green glazes proved popular, but the Aerial Blue was producedfor only a brief period. While the rich colors of the Standard Ware continuedto sell, the paler palettes of the Iris and Sea Green glazes acknowledged thecompetition of popular changes in European decorative hues. By the end ofthe 1890's Rookwood had become one of countless decorative arts firmsthroughout Europe and America which felt the force of the Art Nouveau thenemanating from France. Whereas the Japanese influence which enteredRookwood through Galle's Japonisme ceramics in the early 1880's is easilydiscernible, 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 throughthe 1890's and well into the twentieth century, this influence became pro-gressively submerged. Intermittently, pieces were created which clearlyshowed their indebtedness to Japanese prints, paintings, stencils, and otherworks of art. A revival of interest in oriental forms and decorative subjects aslate as the 1920's underscored the tenacity with which Japanese art heldRookwood captive for forty years.

The exuberant Japanesque decorations of Mrs. Nichols in the 1870's and1880'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 surelydid. The freedom with which nature was recorded by Rookwood artists couldnot have developed without the example of Japanese artists and the richcatalogue of their decorative subjects. Moreover, the ceramics of Japanafforded Rookwood a treasure trove of forms, bodies, glazes, decorations,

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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 ofthe arts in Cincinnati. The city's Industrial Expositions in the 1870's and1880's featured well publicized showcases for Japanese art and culture,stimulating the interest of many thousands who did not ordinarily attendthe frequent public lectures, exhibitions and sales, and displays of privatecollections all centering on Japanese subjects. After the final Industrial Ex-position in 1888, the Cincinnati Art Museum continued for many years aprogram rich in offerings designed to maintain the vitality of the QueenCity'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. Itwould be difficult to exaggerate either the strength of this influence or theforce 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 artsin 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 pub-lished several articles on the Japanese influence on Rookwood Pottery.

(1) For information about the influence of "Twelve dinner-plates, designed byJapanese 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 againCultures and Modern Art: The Encounter impelled to ask, Why should not this artistof 19th and 2.0th Century European Art have spent his strength upon the birds andand Music xvith Asia, Africa, Oceania, plants of France?" Little did Elliott realizeAfro-and Indo-America, exhibition how pervasive Japonisme was in Frenchcatalogue on the occasion of the Games of industrial design. Nor could he know thatthe 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 Servicebition catalogue, The Cleveland Museum Parisien were illustrated in Jennie L.of Art, The Rutgers University Art Gallery, Young, The Ceramic Art: A Compendiumand 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 hep. 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 Artthe 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.

(5) George Ward Nichols, Art Education

Applied to Industry (New York, 1877),

p. 203.

(6) Hokusai's Manga, or Random

Sketches; Katsushika Isai's Kacho Sansui

Zushiki, or Paintings of Flowers, Birds,

Mountains, and Water; YanagawaShigenobu's Ryusen Gafu-Jimbutsu,

Gyochu no Bu, or The Book of Pictures-

Parts of Figures, Fish and Insects by

Yanagawa; and Kokon Meika Gafu, or

Book of Paintings by Old and Modern

Masters.

The author is most grateful to Dr. Osamu

Ueda, Associate Curator of Oriental Art,

The Art Institute of Chicago, who helped

to identify the Japanese sources for the

designs in Pottery, How It Is Made.

(7) See Loan Collection Exhibition, Pre-

pared by The Women's Art Museum

Association of Cincinnati, Cincinnati,

1878.

(8) Catalogue of the Yedo-Nausau Collec-

tion of the Choicest Japanese Works of

Art, exhibition and sale on and after May13, 1878, Jacob Graff and Company,

Cincinnati, p. [2], pamphlet, Cincinnati

Historical Society.

(9) The original sepia-colored photograph

is in the Cincinnati Art Museum Archives.

A vase of the same shape and decoration

as that in the center of the photograph is

in the Cincinnati Art Museum (1952.406).

(10 ) Exhibition of Japanese Art

Treasures, Ceramics of the Orient,

pamphlet, Cincinnati Historical Society.(11) Alice C. Hall, "Cincinnati Faience,"

Potter's American Monthly, XV, August

1880, pp. 362-363.

(12) It is believed that the Aladdin Vase

—Shape Number 1 in the Rookwood Shape

Book (The Rookwood Collection, The

Cincinnati Historical Society), wasamong the pieces drawn from the

first kiln. Three Aladdin vases besides

the one pictured in the Shape RecordBook are known today; two are in privatecollections and one, decorated by Albert

R. Valentine in 1883, is in the Cincinnati

Art Museum. The Aladdin Vase is signedin black on the exterior surface "A.R.

Valentine/1833." Although born"Valentine," he changed the spelling ofhis surname in the early 1880's to"Valentien."

All four vases share common stylistic

traits. Grotesque fish, marine creatures,shells, and reptiles in varying heights of

relief, and cloud-like swirls applied

vigorously in slip, encircle the massivevases. Fishing net in gilded relief com-

pletes the decorative program of one

Aladdin Vase. The repellent subject and

heavy-handed execution of the decoration

create an overpowering visual impact.

(13) Mrs. Aaron F. Perry, "Decorative

Pottery of Cincinnati," Harper's New

Monthly Magazine, LXII, April 1881,

P-837-(14) "Mrs. Nichols' Pottery," Cincinnati

Daily Gazette, August 22, 1881, p. 5. As

with many Japanese names recorded in

English print, the name "Ichidsuka" is

problematic; according to scholars, the

name is not correctly Japanese. A study of

the papers of Minister John A. Bingham

in the Ohio Historical Society failed to

provide further information.

(15) The Art Journal, N.S. VII, December1881, p. 380. An attempt is made by Duke

Coleman and Cliff R. Leonard in Rookwood

Pottery Potpourri, 1980, pp. 84-85, to

assign to Ichidsuka Kenzo and his un-

named assistant the ciphers of unknown

Japanese decorators recorded by Stanley

G. Burt in his 1916 holograph listing of

Rookwood then on loan to the Cincinnati

Art Museum. Unfortunately, no substan-

tial evidence supports this assignment.

(16) As quoted in Herbert Peck, The Book

of Rookwood Pottery (New York, 1968),P- 15-

(17) Because of her unpleasant relation-ship with Rookwood, Laura A. Fry may

have chosen to donate her ceramic piecesto the then City Art Museum of St. Louis

(now the St. Louis Art Museum) ratherthan to the Cincinnati Art Museum. In1910, her father, William Henry Fry, had a

72

highly successful exhibition of his wood-carvings at the Art Museum in St. Louis.A shallow dish given to the St. Louis ArtMuseum in 1911 by Laura A. Fry is deco-rated with a variety of fish, crabs, a prawn,and insects. The designs were takendirectly from Shigenobu's Ryusen GafuThe second example of transfer printingis a circular plate in the PhiladelphiaMuseum of Art. It too is decorated withdesigns from the Ryusen Gafu.

(18) "Cincinnati Reports," Crockery and

Glass Journal, September 1882, p. 46.

(19) Illustrated Catalogue of the ArtDepartment. Cincinnati Industrial Expo-sition 1882, Cincinnati, 1882, n. p.

( 20 ) A photocopy of this advertisement isin the author's possession.

(21) "Art Pottery," Cincinnati DailyGazette, October 7, 1880, p. 8. Examplesof Nancy ceramics and other European artpotteries were displayed in the IndustrialExposition of 1879. "The Exposition,"Cincinnati Enquirer, September 27, 1879,p. 7.

(22) William Watts Taylor to GordonShillito, Cincinnati, Ohio, July 9, 1887,Letter Book I (December 23, 1886-October 11,1887), p. 319, MitchellMemorial Library, Mississippi State Uni-versity, Starkville, Mississippi. Even Mrs.Storer acknowledged Galle's influence onRookwood. In a letter of September 4, 1893to Mary Louise McLaughlin she wrote that"some older French works, and Galle aremore responsible for Rookwood."

(23) The Rookwood Record Museum wasdispersed decades ago. William WattsTaylor, who died in 1913, bequeathed tothe Cincinnati Art Museum his art potterycollection containing several unidentifiedpieces, one an apparent European imita-tion of Rookwood. Taylor's bequest to theArt Museum deserves study in itself.

(24) "Ceramic Enterprise in Cincinnati,"The Art Amateur, XIV, December 1885,p. 19. Although the Centennial Exhibitionproved America was equal to Europeannations in technological advancements,the nation's industrial artistic productions

were hardly considered worthy of seriousattention. Even before the Centennialclosed, there came calls for Americans toproduce a uniquely "American" art. Butfew, if any, had a clear idea of what an"American" art should be. The initialphase of the Arts and Crafts Movement inAmerica was heavily influenced byEuropean and Japanese designs. In 1885,five years after its founding, Rookwood'swares were not distinctively American, soindebted was the pottery to Japanese,French, and English art.

(25) Mr. S. G. Burt's Record Book of Wareat Art Museum, 2,292 pieces of earlyRookwood Pottery in the Cincinnati ArtMuseum in 1916 (The Cincinnati Histori-cal Society, 1978), p. 46. The original Burtholograph is in The Cincinnati HistoricalSociety.

(26) "Chat on Japan," Cincinnati DailyTimes-Star, March 2, 1886, p. 6. For moreinformation about Morse see MoneyHickman and Peter Fetchko, Japan Day by

Day: an Exhibition in Honor of EdwardSylvester Morse, exhibition catalogue,Peabody Museum of Salem,Massachusetts, 1977.

(27) [Elizabeth Williams Perry], A Sketchof the Women's Art Museum Associationof Cincinnati 1877-1886 (Cincinnati,1886),p. 125.

(28) Dorothy G. Wayman, EdwardSylvester Morse: A Biography (Cambridge,Massachusetts, 1942), p. 306.

(29) The Storer Collection of Japanesepottery was recalled from the Art Museumin 1976 by Mrs. Storer's grandson, Jean-Pierre, Marquis de Chambrun, and wassold at auction in London in 1978. SeeSotheby Parke Bernet & Co., London,Japanese Pottery, Porcelain, Netsuke andLacquer including a Collection of Pottery,February 22, 1978.

(30) Letter, April 26,1886 from ProfessorEdward S. Morse to General Alfred T.Goshorn, Cincinnati Art Museum Library,Archives, Director's Correspondence, 1886,Folder L-N, letter M-12.

(31) Sylvester Baxter, "The Morse Collec-tion of Japanese Pottery," reprint from

73

The American Architect, May 28, 1877,Salem, Massachusetts, Essex Institute,

1887, p. 16.

(32) The Storer fukusas and paintedscrolls were recalled from the Art Museumby Mrs. Storer's heirs in 1980.

(33) For more information about the threeHenri J. M. Pottier pieces given to theMuseum by the Women's Art MuseumAssociation see Kenneth R. Trapp, "Henri

J. M. Pottier: A Rediscovered French

Japonisme Decorator in the Cincinnati Art

Museum," The Decorative Arts Newsletter,

III (Winter 1977-1978), pp. 3-8.

(34) [Deakin Brothers and Company],

Trip Through Japan. Dai Nippon Haku-

rankai and Temple of the Arts and

Industries of Japan, [San Francisco?],1885, n. p. Louise Revol, Associate Curator

of History, The Oakland Museum, sent the

author a copy of this program, as well as

copies of clippings from various news-

papers in cities which hosted the

"Japanese Village."

(35) Ibid.(36) From a newspaper clipping (author's

possession) entitled "Crowding the Japs,"

no city, no date, no page. Only the name

"Shirayamadani" is listed. The name

"Haigo Masuo" appears in the Japanese

manner and not as "Masuo Haigo." The

Oakland Museum in California has a

scrapbook of memorabilia from the

Frederick Deakin family with two water-colors, one by Haigo Masuo and the other

by Shirayamadani.

(37) Ida M. Tarbell, "The Arts and Indus-

tries of Cincinnati" The Chautauquan,

VII, December 1886, p. 162.

(38) Burt's Record Book, p. 57. In the rush

to catalogue the vast collection of Rook-wood on loan to the Art Museum, it is

probable that Burt failed to think to askShirayamadani to translate the Japanese

signatures or to ask him who M. Haigo was.(39) William Watts Taylor to LouisWertheimer, Boston, Massachusetts, May

4,1887, Letter Book I, Mississippi StateUniversity Library, pp. 183-184. The spell-

ing of both Shirayamadani's names pre-

sented problems for Americans. What anAmerican would consider Shirayamadani'sgiven, or first, name is spelled three waysin the literature: Kataro, Ketaro and

Kitaro. To avoid the spelling altogether,frequently his name appears merely as"K. Shirayamadani." Virginia Cummins,who knew Shirayamadani, tells me hespelled his name "Kataro." The spelling

"Kitaro" appears on Shirayamadani's

death certificate in City Hall, Cincinnati.

Death certificates are not, however, always

reliable documents, as even Shirayama-

dani's proves. In October 1897, Shirayama-

dani united with The First Church of

Christ, Scientist, in Boston and Cincinnati.

In the union his name is typed "Kitaro,"

although he signed it simply "K. Shira-

yamadani." To confuse matters even more,

I have been told that the spelling "Kitaro"

is correctly Japanese while the other vari-

ations are not. Interestingly, there seems

to be no documented spelling of Shira-

yamadani's first name by him.

(40) William Watts Taylor to Y. Tomita,

Washington, D. C, 10 March 1887, Letter

Book I, MSU Library, p. 109. Yadama was

a painter with the "Japanese Village."

Correspondence from Louise Revol to the

author June 7, 1978.

(41) William Watts Taylor to W. H.

Smyth, Atlanta, Georgia, October 4, 1887,

Letter Book I, MSU Library, p. 480.

(42) Unfortunately, only a very few of

the books, periodicals, photographs, and

other material from Rookwood's extensive

library have survived. A private collectionof material from that library includes the

English edition of Bing's Artistic Japan.

It is stamped "ROOKWOOD POTTERY."

(43) Wilbur Stout, "Art Pottery," inChapter 1 of "History of the Clay Industry

in Ohio," in Geological Survey of Ohio,

Bulletin 26 (1923), p. 92.

(44) William Watts Taylor to Messrs. C.Hennecke and Company, Chicago, Illinois,December 12, 1890, Letter Book V

October 31,1890, July 10,1891), MSULibrary, p. 86.(45) Catalogue of Objects Loaned by

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Mr. John W. Book-waiter, to the CincinnatiMuseum Association, Cincinnati Art Mu-seum, loan exhibition catalogue, 1901,PP- 53-75- Examples of knife handles,sword guards, ferrules for sword handles,and clips for sword handles from theBookwalter Collection were accessionedby the Art Museum in 1919.

(46) Catalogue of Japanese Paintings andColor Prints Exhibited in the Art Museum,Cincinnati, from the First to the Fifteenthof March, 1896, Cincinnati Art Museum,exhibition catalogue, 1896.

(47) Peck, Rookwood Pottery, p. 54.

(48) Special Exhibition of One HundredColored Photographs of Japanese SubjectsCarefully Selected by Mr. K. Shirayama-dani, October 7-31, 1900, Cincinnati ArtMuseum, announcement, 1900.

(49) Cincinnati Art Museum Purchases,p. 80, Registration Department, CincinnatiArt Museum.

(50) Ibid., p. 78 ff.(51) Cincinnati Art Museum Donations1881-1913, p. 137, Registration Depart-ment, Cincinnati Art Museum.

(52) Ibid., p. 149.

George T. Marsh and Company and otherfirms advertised in the IllustratedCatalogue of the Art Department.Cincinnati Industrial Exposition 1882.

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