Haniwa Helper // Day 13
Overseas Haniwa
I’m always keen on spotting haniwa in international collections and I’ve found haniwa at museums in New York, D.C., Florida, London, and Honolulu. It’s interesting to learn more about how these artifacts have become world travelers. /1

This piece from the British Museum is part of the collection donated by William Gowland. Gowland was an antiquarian who excavated kofun & returned home with a collection of artifacts and contextual information For more on this subject, please check out the work of @lucusedge. /2

This female(?) figurine was initially a gift of Joseph Hirshhorn to the Hirshhorn museum before being transferred to the Sackler Gallery. Western interest in Japanese art had encouraged a robust art market, but artifacts like this one often arrived overseas missing data. /3

And the trend continues. This gorgeous boar has a stark archival entry. It was donated to the Met in NYC by Harry G.C. Packard, a naval officer with a post-war interest in Japanese art. He amassed many pieces of prehistoric art, but provenance is limited to the 20th cent. /2

Collections require so much more consideration than I can give in a tweet. The development of cultural heritage law in Japan play as much of a role in the late 19th to early 20th century as the dealers and collectors. I'm not 100% happy with this thread and may update it later.