Heine Henri

1856 · réf. 42585 — New York: G.P. Putnam & Company 1856. Tinted lithograph on proof paper tipped onto a bristol board with glossy back as issued with additional hand colouring of figures accompanied by an original descriptive text leaf. A finely atmospheric view of the cemetery and temple precinct at Shimoda Japan one of Heine's most evocative images from Graphic Scenes of the Japan Expedition. This plate shows the graveyard at the temple rendered not as a topographical prospect alone but as a carefully staged nocturnal or dusk scene. The temple buildings occupy the middle ground their broad tiled roofs framed by dense trees stone lanterns and upright funerary monuments. Small figures move through the foreground paths and among the graves their pale clothing and touches of blue and pink hand-colouring heightening the stillness of the composition. Beyond the temple enclosure a luminous sky and distant hills open the view outward giving the scene a quiet theatricality characteristic of Heine's strongest expedition images. Shimoda had particular significance within the Perry expedition. Under the Treaty of Kanagawa signed in 1854 Japan opened Shimoda and Hakodate for American vessels seeking provisioning and refuelling and granted the United States the right to appoint consuls in those ports if deemed necessary. Heine's image therefore records a place newly charged with diplomatic meaning while its subject remains local and specific: a Buddhist temple cemetery with its stone markers lanterns pathways and hillside setting observed through the lens of a visiting Western artist. Wilhelm Heine was the official artist on Commodore Matthew C. Perry's expedition to Japan in 1853-54. On returning to the United States he produced several series of prints commemorating the trip. A group of six elephant-folio prints appeared in 1855 and the following year a second volume was issued in a smaller format with different images and with explanatory text. Both projects employed the New York lithographic firm of Sarony among the best lithographers in the United States at that time. Bennett p.53; McGrath American Color Plate Books 123. G.P. Putnam & Company unknown books