|
YEAR |
|
EVENT |
|
|
|
|
|
c.1809
|
|
The Chinese Hong merchant Puankequa II in Canton sent Joseph Banks (1743-1820) rare plants, including a very old dwarf tree and many pots of the finest moutans (tree peonies). The dwarf tree was eventually presented to the Queen for "Her Majesty's inspection of the Art peculiar to the Chinese [sic] , of dwarfing into the picturesque the most lofty Tree of the Forest." (This Queen probably was Charlotte (1744-1818), wife of George III.) 1 |
|
|
|
|
|
(1820-1822)
|
|
(John Livingstone, Surgeon of the East India Company's medical service in China, wrote two letters to the Horticultural Society of London. Containing details about the dwarf trees, these were subsequently published in the Transactions.) |
|
|
|
|
|
1827
|
The Gardener's Magazine publishes an excerpt from the
Journal of James Main (1793-94)
which describes the process of making "Dwarfed Forest-Trees," as seen in the area of
Canton, China.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
early 1830s
|
An 1835
book review
of George Bennett's
travels includes this editorial comment (in addition to the excerpt about how the trees
are made): "We once had an opportunity of seeing at Windsor
[sic]
a few of the dwarf
trees of China; one in particular of perhaps a foot and a half high, resembled a very
ancient elm; in the knottiness and roughness of its bark, the peculiar formation of its
arms, and in its whole growth and appearance, it might well have supposed to have seen
two centuries. It was in a tolerably sized garden pot..."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1846
|
Small quantities of plants had been brought to Europe at least by this year when several specimens of dwarf trees were sent to Queen Victoria from China. What their public display was is currently unknown. | |
|
|
|
|
|
(1847-1863)
|
|
(Robert Fortune, a Scotsman who would become famed as a plant explorer, wrote three books about his travels in China and Japan. These contained detailed accounts of dwarf potted trees in those two countries. Excerpts with those details were reprinted in reviews. Books by other writers included passing comments about the trees, but Livingstone, Main, Bennett, and Fortune gave the most detailed descriptions.) |
|
|
|
|
|
1864
|
|
Other dwarf potted trees were to be seen in the South Kensington Museum, in England. They were said to have been brought there by some Japanese travelers. |
|
|
|
|
|
1899
|
|
"There is a sketch in the 1899 catalog of [the famous Boehmer nursery and exporting firm (1882-1908)] of a dwarf maple that was sold to HRH The Princess of Wales." (That HRH was Alexandra of Denmark, who would become the British queen when her husband became King Edward VII in 1902.) 2 |
|
|
|
|
|
c. 1900
|
|
And the Kew Gardens had a collection of the dwarfed trees. |
|
|
|
|
|
(1901)
|
|
(A lecture with lantern slides, "Dwarf Trees," was presented by Toichi Tsumura, M.J.S. before the Japan Society and subsequently reproduced in its Transactions.) |
|
|
|
|
|
1902
|
|
"The wife of the new Lord Mayor of London, Sir Marcus Samuel, ...is said to possess the finest collection of Japanese plants in London, dwarf trees and chrysanthemums being her specialty." |
|
|
|
|
|
1910
|
|
"A visit to the site by Queen Alexandra in mid-March, in advance of the opening, was highlighted by all the newspapers, adding royal prestige to the Japan-British Exhibition." A Thuja obtusa, reportedly 125 years old, was later awarded a silver cup as the finest example of a pigmy tree shown at the event. "[T]he Japanese Government presented to the City of London two transportable miniature gardens as a most precious gift... Those who saw these gazed with astonishment on these apparent playthings." 3 |
|
|
|
|
|
NOTES
This is an ongoing listing of our researches' discoveries. It is not the final word on the subject. Japan's first participation in the London International Exhibition on Industry and Art was in 1862. Here the first Japanese art and crafts works were seen by non-traveling Europeans, and these images had an immediate and widespread effect on the designs of the period. (The first official Japanese pavilion was in the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1867, and the first participation of the new Meiji government of Japan was at Welt-Ausstellung in Vienna during 1873.) We have not yet found any evidence that dwarf trees were present at any of these early displays, although at least the latter did have a type of Japanese garden. 1. Fan, Fa-ti British Naturalists in Qing China: Science, Empire, and Cultural Encounter (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press; 2004), first sentence from pg. 34. Per footnote 133 on pg. 183, original source is the British Library "BM. Add. 33981. 227-228; Add. MS. 33981. 229-30; DTC (Dawson Turner Copies, Joseph Banks Correspondence, Department of Botany, Natural History Museum of London), vol. 17, f. 35." Per the same footnote, the second sentence is from "BM. Add. MS. 33981. 261." Per the Manuscripts Catalogue of the British Library, for Add. 33981, this correspondence dates 11 Feb. 1802-16 Dec. 1809. RJB is endeavoring to locate copies of these original sources. Banks was the President of the Horticultural Society (est. 1804) and ex officio Director of Kew Gardens. 2. Creech, Dr. John L. The Bonsai Saga: How the Bicentennial Collection Came to America (Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Arboretum; April 2001), pg. 9. 3. Frese, Paul F. "Bonsai Exhibits Come West," Journal, ABS, Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring 1982, pg. 1, photo pg. 2; Gothein, Marie Luise A History of Garden Art (reprinted by Hacker Art Books, New York; 1966. First published in English, 1928), pg. 268. |