Japanese Gallery (Honkan) Room 16
January 19, 2010 (Tue) - March 7, 2010 (Sun)
When the present-day Tokyo National Museum was established in 1872, it was greatly expected to become the key source of knowledge to contribute to the modernization of the newly reformed nation. For this purpose, the museum actively collected not only artifacts and art objects but also books from Europe and the United States that provided the latest information about natural science and manufacturing techniques. It was especially in its earliest stages, at the time when the responsibility for museum administration was transferred successively between the educational (1872-75), internal affairs (1875-81) and agricultural and commercial (1881-86) ministries, that books concerning natural science, mineralogy, agricultural science and engineering were avidly collected.
In a time without the information technologies that we have today, collecting books from abroad came along with significant difficulties. The books were gathered through various means, including exchange with museums abroad, purchases made by government officials on business trips, donations by museum curators from their own collections, and purchases from foreign book dealers that had just begun their businesses in Japan.
By looking into resources from the time, this exhibition pays tribute to the museum's efforts to accumulate knowledge through the acquisition of Western books in the early Meiji period.
Major works in this exhibition
