Project
Osaka Idols in the Brussels Limelight. The Belgian Reception of Kamigata-e and their late Acquisition by the Royal Museums of Art and History in a Western European Context
The principal objective of this project is a thorough investigation of the Belgian reception of kamigata-e and their relatively late acquisition by the Brussels Royal Museums of Art and History (henceforth RMAH).
It appears that during the fin de siècle kamigata-e were initially ignored by Belgian Japonisants, upstaged as they were by the prints produced in Edo. Despite the RMAH having laid the foundation of their Japanese prints collection in this period, the bulk of the Osaka prints were not acquired until the 1920s. It is mainly thanks to the endeavors of Jules Bommer (1873–1950), former curator at the institution, that the RMAH can now boast ownership of no less than 685 kamigata-e. Nonetheless, this collection has hitherto remained largely unexplored.
After having revealed the causes of the aforementioned disregard for Kamigata prints, this dissertation aims to compare their late acquisition by the RMAH to the inclusion of these prints in other representative public collections in Western Europe. In doing so, it aspires to verify that the indifference to kamigata-e was consistent throughout fin-de-siècle Western Europe.