The Centennial Exhibition, the Philadelphia museum of art, and Hector Tyndale

Magazine Antiques, March, 2002 by Felice Fischer

May 10, 2002, marks the 125th anniversary of the opening of what is now the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Pl. I). Originally called the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, it was an offspring of the Centennial Exhibition, which opened in Philadelphia on May 10, 1876. Presiding at the opening ceremony were President Ulysses S. Grant, the cabinet, the Supreme Court, both houses of Congress, and more than 100,000 spectators, of whom 76,172 had paid a five dollar admission fee. Officially called the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures and Products of the Soil and Mine, the Centennial Exhibition celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of American independence, and the expansion of American industry and international commerce.

In 1871 the United States Congress had passed a bill to create a centennial commission, and on July 3, 1873, President Grant issued the official proclamation creating the Centennial Exhibition, and the commissioners began work in earnest. In that year American officials went to Vienna to observe that city's world's fair, where they were impressed by the cosmopolitan setting and the displays from countries such as China and Japan. The following year John Wien Forney (1817-1881), one of the commissioners, was sent to Europe to solicit participation in the American Centennial Exhibition. An editor at the Philadelphia Press, he published his report in 1876, writing with the enthusiasm typical of the time: "Our World's Exhibition, growing rapidly and largely in the eyes of foreigners, will of necessity be the event of the age." (1) Forney started his trip in England, visiting various potteries, the London Zoological Society (the model for Philadelphia's new zoo), and the Crystal Palace. The latter, built of glass and iron for the 1851 exhibition, was still attracting visitors--more than thirty-four million since 1854, according to Froney. (2) This building became the prototype for the Philadelphia Centennial's Main Building. By December 1874, Forney reported on his success in enlisting British participation in the exhibition. One of the members of the British commission was Sir Francis Philip Cunliffe-Owen (1828-1894), the director of the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) from 1873 to 1893. Forney also brought back to the United States for display at the exhibition the Centennial flag carried by Captain Paul Boyton (1848-1924) on his historic attempt to swim across the English Channel on April 10, 1875.

Japan was formally invited to participate in the Centennial Exhibition in April 1874 by John Armor Bingham (1815-1900), the American minister in Japan. The Japanese accepted, naming their minister of the interior, Okubo Toshimichi (1830-1878), the president of the Japanese commission. (3) Lieutenant-General Saigo Tsugumichi (1843-1902) was appointed vice president of the commission and became the de facto head of the twenty-five person commission, the largest sent by any country The Japanese government allocated about six hundred thousand dollars for the undertaking and hired several foreign advisers to assist with preparations, including Cunliffe-Owen and David Murray (1830-1905) of Rutgers University in New Jersey. (4)

Examples of crafts from all over Japan were solicited and gathered in Tokyo during 1875, and about seven thousand packages were shipped from Yokohama in late February 1876. The timbers for two Japanese buildings, the Commissioners' Residence and the Japanese Bazaar, along with the workmen to assemble them, had already sailed for Philadelphia in November 1875. These two traditional Japanese structures (see Fig. 2) were among fifteen buildings erected by foreign nations at the Centennial Exhibition. The construction of the Japanese buildings became such an attraction before the exhibition opened that a protective fence had to be built around the site to prevent interruption of the work and the theft of the Japanese carpenters' strange looking tools.

In the Main Building, the Japanese exhibitors set up an impressive array of porcelain and pottery bronzes, lacquerwares, furniture, screens, textiles, wood and ivory carvings, straw and bamboo wares, and toys. There was also a section devoted to education, featuring maps, scientific instruments, and even schoolroom desks. Another corner of the display showed zoological specimens, minerals and ores, and surgical instruments. The bronzes elicited an enthusiastic response from visitors to the Japanese section. "The Japanese exhibit is a mine of wonders. Bronzes of the most exquisite workmanship and immense size" impressed the young Ernest F. Fenollosa (1853-1908), who soon thereafter became one of the first Westerners to study Japanese art in depth. (5) There is no disputing the high quality of the casting of pieces such as the multitiered bronze urn and stand shown in Plate II.

"The third great Japanese speciality is lacquered ware. Here we are in a new world of marvels," wrote the correspondent for the New York Tribune. (6) One piece of furniture purchased from the Japanese display for the Pennsylvania Museum is noteworthy for its elaborate carving and variety of inlays of horn, mother-of-pearl, jade, bronze, and malachite (Pl. VI). The cabinet may have been intended as a sort of showcase of lacquer techniques.