Currently not on view
That is Where All Babies Live in Japan,
1890–1892
Robert Frederick Blum, American, 1857–1903
x1993-163
In an 1893 account of his journey to Japan published in Scribner’s Magazine, Blum writes about his "wild desire" to visit that country, which he traces back to his purchase of a Japanese fan at a music festival in Cincinnati when he was just fifteen years old. After studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Blum had his dream realized when Scribner’s commissioned him in 1890 to illustrate a series of articles about Japan, where he remained for two and a half years. Blum’s full-page illustration, for which this is
a study, accompanies a text describing how children as young as five carried their siblings on their backs while they ran, jumped, flew kites, and fished for frogs.
a study, accompanies a text describing how children as young as five carried their siblings on their backs while they ran, jumped, flew kites, and fished for frogs.
Information
Title
That is Where All Babies Live in Japan
Dates
1890–1892
Maker
Medium
Watercolor
Dimensions
35.7 x 27.4 cm (14 1/16 x 10 13/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Charles Scribner III, Class of 1973 and Graduate School Class of 1977
Object Number
x1993-163
Inscription
in graphite, upper right: 6591| (1)
in graphite, in margins: [miscellaneous matter's instructions]
Marks/Labels/Seals
Stamp in red ink, lower left: Blum [in square] [Lugt 266]
Culture
Type
Materials
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1993", Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 53, no. 1 (1994): p. 46-95., p. 93
- John Wilmerding et al., American Art in the Princeton University Art Museum: volume 1: drawings and watercolors, (Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum; New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 224, cat. no. 57; p. 225 (illus.); p. 339, checklist no. 837
- Gabriel P. Weisberg, The Orient expressed: Japan’s influence on Western art, 1854-1918, (Jackson, MS: Mississippi Museum of Art; Seattle, WA: In association with University of Washington Press, 2011).
