The Charles Stewart Smith Album: Rediscovering Forgotten Modern Japanese Painters of the late 19th Century: The Charles Stewart Smith Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: メトロポリタン美術館所蔵 チャールズ・スチュワート・スミス・コレクション「近代日本画帖」

This album of modern Japanese paintings collected by the businessman and art collector Charles Stewart Smith (1832–1909) is held at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts and was bought in Japan around 1892/93 from the Irish journalist and collector Francis Brinkley (1841–1912). This album of animal, bird and fish subjects included works by highly-acclaimed painters of the Meiji era (1868–1912), such as Hashimoto Gahō (1835–1908), Kawabata Gyokushō (1842–1913), Kawanabe Kyōsai (1831–1889), and Watanabe Seitei (1851–1918), as well as works by relatively unknown artists such as Okada Baison (b.1864), Ōide Tōkō (1841–1905), and Seki Shūkō (1858–1915). The seals and signatures indicate that these works were probably painted between 1887 and 1892. The earliest and majority of work in the group is by Kawanabe Kyōsai, clearly dated to 1887, whereas the latest work is by Seki Shūkō, dated to 1892. It can therefore be concluded that the album was assembled no earlier than 1892, when it passed into Smith’s possession.