Charles Leander Weed Photographs of Japan

This collection consists of two photographic prints: I. One sepia monochrome albumen print taken from a wet collodion glass plate negative, 40 x 52 cm., by Charles Leander Weed, circa 1866. Printed caption on mount reads "View Near Yokohama 19." Printed text on the reverse identifies the publisher, Thomas Houseworth, 317-319 Montgomery St., San Francisco. The reverse also includes a reproduction of a medal won by Thomas Houseworth at the Paris International Exhibition 1867 for the "finest photographs of scenery of the Pacific Coast." Image depicts a view of the landscape near Yokohama, Japan.

II. One sepia monochrome albumen print taken from a wet collodion glass plate negative, by Charles Leander Weed, circa 1866. Printed caption on mount reads "Fishing Village on Mississippi Bay -- Near Yokohama 18". Printed text on the reverse identifies the publisher, Thomas Houseworth, 317-319 Montgomery St., San Francisco. The reverse also includes a reproduction of a medal won by Thomas Houseworth at the Paris International Exhibition 1867 for the "finest photographs of scenery of the Pacific Coast." The photograph depicts a road running along white cliffs next to a fishing village on Mississippi Bay (Negishi Bay), near Yokohama, Japan.

The American photographer Charles Leander Weed became well-known for his photographs of California, especially his spectacular views of Yosemite. Weed spent some time in the early 1860s in Hong Kong, where he established a studio with the Chinese name Wit Ying-Seung. When this proved unsuccessful, he traveled in Asia, then returned to California. In 1866-1867, he traveled again to Japan and China, where he made mammoth-plate landscapes that were issued as a series entitled "Oriental Scenery" by the publisher Thomas Houseworth. This mammoth-plate albumen print shows a landscape view near Yokohama, which was the base of foreign trade in Japan after Commodore Perry's arrival in 1853. This mammoth-plate albumen print shows the coastline of Negishi Bay, located south of Yokohama Bay. Located just over one mile due south of Yokohama, across a narrow peninsula, Negishi Bay was known to the foreign residents of Yokohama in the 1860s by its American designation, Mississippi Bay, a nomenclature that was based on the name of one of Commodore Matthew C. Perry's naval vessels. This photograph was taken from a vantage point along the coastal road about two miles southwest of Yokohama, facing in the direction of the city and the more distant capital city, Edo. This site was well within the boundaries established by the Ansei treaties of 1858 for travel by foreigners without special permits.

FSA A2002.04

Weed, Charles Leander, 1824-1903

Japan

Yokohama-shi (Japan)

Mississippi Bay

Japan -- Kanagawa prefecture -- Yokohama

Bays -- Japan

Purchase View of Yokohama, 2002.

Purchase, Fishing Village on Mississippi Bay, 2001.

Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Prints

Photographs

Albumen prints

Charles Leander Weed Photographs of Japan. FSA.A2002.04. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

One flat box.

Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.

Photographs

Albumen prints

Collection is open for research.