‘Almond-Eyed Artisans’/‘Dishonouring the National Polity’: The Japanese Village Exhibition in Victorian London

Abstract

This paper looks at the Japanese Village exhibition that was staged in London in 1885. The exhibition purported to provide visitors with a view of a complete Japanese Village, including buildings, artisans and performers. Today, it is chiefly remembered for its role as the model for W. S. Gilbert's staging of The Mikado. By looking at contemporaneous press coverage of the exhibition in both English and Japanese, it seeks to highlight the conflict between laudatory English reactions to the Village and outraged Japanese responses, and between the image of exotic elegance that exhibition organisers sought to create and the reality of exploitation behind such an image. It documents and analyses this curious encounter between Victorian England and a rapidly changing Japan.

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