Public Service Announcement for Yokohama City

1st February 2023

This week’s edition is on a special exhibition at the Yokohama Archives of History.

The Yokohama Archives of History, located on Naka Ward’s x1Nihon-Odori Street, is holding a special exhibition entitled “Charles Weed, Phantom Photographer: The Unknown Landscape of Japan at the End of the Edo Period”. It will run until Sunday 12th March.

Charles Leander Weed (1824-1903) was an American professional cameraman who visited Japan from 1867-1868, just before the Meiji Restoration.

Many aspects of his career are unknown, and there were very few surviving examples of his work from his time in Japan, which made him somewhat of a “phantom photographer”.

However, in 2021, 31 landscape photographs believed to have been taken by Weed were newly discovered. The photographs, printed in large format, vividly and meticulously record scenes from various parts of Japan (Nagasaki, Edo, and Yokohama) at the end of the Edo Period and during the Meiji Restoration.

In addition to these Weed photographs from private collections, which are being exhibited for the first time, the exhibition also features works from the museum's and domestic institutions' collections, bringing back to life "Japanese landscapes at the end of the Edo period" that have never been shown before.

The Yokohama Archives of History is located on the historic site where the Japan-US Treaty of Peace and Amity was signed in 1854. In the courtyard, there is a "Tamakusu tree" which is said to be the ancestor of the tree depicted in "Commodore Perry's Landing in Yokohama". The Old Building is the former British Consulate General, built in 1931. Please see this too.

Admission is ¥500 adults and ¥250 for elementary and junior high school students, and Yokohama City residents aged 65 and above.

For enquiries, please call 045-201-2100.