A Japanese Girl
A Japanese Girl
A Japanese GirlSigned lower right: Charles Wirgman and inscribed lower centre: jeune filleWatercolour over pencil21.2 by 12.9 cm., 8 ¼ by 5 in.Provenance:Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A. (1803-1878);By descentWirgman worked for the Illustrated London News in London before leaving for China in 1856 to cover the Second Opium War. In 1861 he moved to Yokohama, Japan where he married a Japanese woman and remained until his death. He was one of the first European artists to visit Japan after the ending of restrictions on Western visitors in the 1860s. He published the first magazine in Japan, the Japan Punch, between 1862 and 1887, illustrated with his own cartoons. From 1864 to 1867 he worked in partnership with the photographer Felice Beato as `Beato & Wirgman, Artists and Photographers'. In the 1860s he accompanied the British envoy Sir Ernest Satow on a series of journeys around Japan which became Satow's Diplomat in Japan.){kind=link}
Charles Wirgman (1832-1891)
A Japanese Girl
Signed lower right: Charles Wirgman and inscribed lower centre: jeune fille
Watercolour over pencil
21.2 by 12.9 cm., 8 ¼ by 5 in.
Provenance:
Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A. (1803-1878);
By descent
Wirgman worked for the Illustrated London News in London before leaving for China in 1856 to cover the Second Opium War. In 1861 he moved to Yokohama, Japan where he married a Japanese woman and remained until his death. He was one of the first European artists to visit Japan after the ending of restrictions on Western visitors in the 1860s. He published the first magazine in Japan, the Japan Punch, between 1862 and 1887, illustrated with his own cartoons. From 1864 to 1867 he worked in partnership with the photographer Felice Beato as `Beato & Wirgman, Artists and Photographers'. In the 1860s he accompanied the British envoy Sir Ernest Satow on a series of journeys around Japan which became Satow's Diplomat in Japan.