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Programme printed on Commodore Perry's ship in Japan for its black-face minstrel show

[PERRY, Matthew Calbraith].
Ethiopian concert. United States steam frigate Powhatan, Hakodadi, Island of Yesso, Empire of Japan, May 29th [1854]. An Ethiopian entertainment will be given by the Japanese Olio Minstrels, on board this ship, this evening, weather favorable, to which the Officers invite your attendance.
[On board the Powhatan], Japan Expedition Press, [1854]. 19 x 26 cm as opened flat. A programme and invitation, printed letterpress on washi mulberry tissue paper with a lace-like decorative flower pattern in white.
€ 27,500
Second copy recorded of the printed programme (serving also as invitation) to a minstrel show performed on-board Commodore Perry's flagship by the "Japanese Olio Minstrels", comprising sailors from the ship's crew, many performing in black-face, but also with a few African-Americans. Perry made his expedition to Japan to deliver the American President Millard Fillmore's letter of friendship to the Emperor of Japan and negotiate the Treaty of Kanagawa. As the ship left Hong Kong for Japan in January 1854, it set up an on-board printing office with a small press that had been sent from America by the State Department. The treaty was signed on 31 March 1854 and after it was tested at Hakodate (Hakodadi) Perry invited various Japanese dignitaries to attend the minstrel show on-board his ship on 29 May 1854, at 7 pm. The only copy recorded in the literature belonged to the wife of Commodore Perry's grandson and passed to the Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, Maryland.
The programme lists the pieces performed and gives the names of the crew members for each act. Programmes are known for three shows given on the ship, but only two were printed by the ship's own press. They are extremely rare.
Somewhat foxed but in very good condition, with only a few folds and with the paper stretched apart at a couple points along the edge. A remarkable document of a unique American musical genre, as performed for Japanese on Commodore Perry's ship. Morison, Commodore Perry's Japan Expedition Press and shipboard theatre, 1967, pp. 40-41; Yellin, "Mrs. Belmont, Matthew Perry and the 'Japanese Minstrels'", in: American Music, 14 (1996), pp. 257-275, at pp. 267-269 (including fig. 6); cf. Lovett, "The Japan Expedition Press", in: Harvard Library bulletin, 12 (1958), pp. 242-252, illustrating a similar programme for a concert on 26 May 1854.
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Related Subjects:

Art, architecture & photography  >  Music, Theatre & Dance
Asia  >  Japan & Far East
History, law & philosophy  >  Law & Politics
Maritime history  >  Naval History