Advice for the Takaoka Copperware Industry Struggling with Export Slumps: Researcher Donates Materials on Art Dealer Tadamasa Hayashi to City Museum
Researcher Yasuko Kigi donated three materials related to Takaoka-born art dealer Tadamasa Hayashi to the Takaoka City Museum.Summary
Yasuko Kigi, a researcher of Tadamasa Hayashi (1853–1906), a Takaoka-born art dealer who was active based in Paris during the Meiji era, has donated three items of Hayashi-related materials to the Takaoka City Museum. The donated materials include the original letter in which Hayashi offered advice to the Takaoka copperware industry, which was struggling with export slumps as Japonisme waned in Europe. Hayashi widely introduced Japanese arts and crafts, including ukiyo-e, to Europe, influencing Impressionist painters such as Van Gogh and Manet, and made great contributions to artistic exchange between Japan and the West. He also produced Takaoka copperware and devoted himself to promoting his hometown's industry. The 1886 document "Opinion on Maintaining Takaoka Copperware" is a letter in which Hayashi responded when the master craftsman Zenpei Shirasaki of Takaoka copperware consulted him about the export slump, discussing Japanese arts and crafts from a global perspective.
(Source：中日新聞Web)