Japanese Government Gift 1878
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of 1150 items, dating to the Meiji Period, which were gifted by the Japanese Government to the City of Glasgow in November 1878. This collection represents a wide range of contemporary art wares and represents many different types of technique and style of manufacture. It includes over 100 ceramic items from 23 different regional prefectures or city districts, over 500 paper samples and 52 examples of the rare and fine 'gampishi' from Tokyo and Hiroshima. Other items include pottery, furniture, lacquer ware, metal ware, textiles, and musical instruments. Amongst the key pieces in the collection is a pair of tall, intricate porcelain sake cups painted on the outside by Zengoro with scenes from the Tales of Gengi; on the inside are 54 'waka' or short poems written by the calligrapher Chiuji. The Japanese Government Gift represents a large cross-section of contemporary Japanese decorative arts pertaining to the 1870s and embraces both high-arts and common everyday products. In return for this gift Glasgow was asked to send industrial samples to the Tokyo National Museum. The inspiration behind the exchange was a Scottish professor in the new Engineering Department of Tokyo University, Professor Robert Henry Smith.
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