Travel award report – Research at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures in Norwich
Since 2023, the St Leonard’s College Postgraduate Travel Awards scheme supports postgraduate students with any travel that would benefit their research and development. In 2025, it allowed Chenxiao Jin, PhD student at the School of Art History, to travel to Norwich to conduct research at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures in Norwich. Here is the full report submitted by the student:
In March 2025, I undertook a ten-day research trip to London and Norwich for my doctoral project entitled ‘Recorded in Colour: Pictorial Representations of Meiji Japan in British Visual Culture, c.1880-1910’. The St Leonard’s College Postgraduate Travel Award supplemented a grant from the British Association of Victorian Studies and enabled me to travel to the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures in Norwich.
My project researches the relationship between images of Meiji Japan produced by British artist-travellers and the cultural phenomenon known as Japonisme in British society. My preliminary research of relevant images and artists has highlighted the Eurocentrism of English-language Japonisme literature. In the current mainstream narrative, Japonisme is often framed as the reception of Japanese art and artefacts by European artists and consumers. This bias is partly the result of collections and documents available at European institutions. Moreover, it also reflects the language barriers that impede exchanges between Anglophone academia and the wider world. To address this issue in my project, I visited the Lisa Sainsbury Library in Norwich to consult their collection of Japanese-language publications.
My primary objective was to search for both canonical and recent works on Japonisme produced by scholars in Japan. Many of these Japanese-language publications, especially exhibition catalogues, are not otherwise available in the UK; therefore, visiting the Library gave me the opportunity to gain an understanding of relevant discourses in Japan for the first time. I was able to identify key authors who utilised resources available in Japanese collections and studied Japonisme in relation to Japanese modern art. These works have heightened my awareness of the diverse interpretations and subjects of Japonisme and stimulated further reflections on my positionality as a researcher. Furthermore, reading Japanese-language works familiarised me with some ongoing research projects in Japan. In longer term, this useful knowledge prepares me for conducting future research in Japan and/or connecting with mentors at Japanese institutions.
In addition, this trip to the Lisa Sainsbury Library also yielded unexpected results. With the kind assistance of the librarian Mr Akira Hirano, I was able to handle several volumes of the periodical Kokka, first published in 1889. I was particularly struck by the quality of its illustrations, which include original woodblock prints and calotypes (figure 1). Since my approach is concerned with the materiality of images, this in-person examination has not only offered an invaluable practical experience but also raised important methodological questions for my research of colour ‘reproductions’.
Figure 1. Woodblock print after “Painting of Wisteria and Peonies” by Hon’ami Kōho, Kokka 5, 1893. The table of contents identifies the creator of the woodblock as Kimura Tokutarou and the printer as Tamura Tetsunosuke. This information draws attention not only to the original painter but also those involved in the reproduction and dissemination of this work.
Finally, I took advantage of this trip and visited the Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery where I encountered yet another unexpected example of Japonisme. In their Twinings Teapot Gallery, I saw two teapots, probably made in the UK and dated to the end of the nineteenth century, that are designed with a Japanese theme. Both feature a Japanese woman, clad in a kimono and holding a parasol, which is a quintessential motif that evoked Japan (figures 2 and 3). Their style and composition suggest that both images are very likely based on studio photographs that catered to a Euro-American tourist market. These teapots demonstrate that Japonisme not only manifested in pictorial arts but also designs of utilitarian items and extended far beyond the metropolitan centre of London to infiltrate provincial collections. While these particular objects are not within the scope of my current research, they supply me with fresh materials to consider and inspirations for research directions, which will contribute to my future career development. I am grateful to St Leonard’s College for their financial support which facilitated a trip that enriched my knowledge about Japonisme and benefited my professional development.
Left: figure 2. “Earthenware; diamond shape, mock bamboo handle, transfer printed, oriental design/Unattributed, pattern number 1785 on base.” NWHCM 1976.318.
Right: figure 3. “Earthenware; transfer printed in underglaze green showing a Japanese woman with parasol, gilt borders/ Unattributed English/ About 1890.” NWHCM 1977.79.