Edoardo Chiossone

Chiossone's famous portrait of Saigo Takamori

By Yuka Nakajima

One of the famous portraits which everyone knows in Japan is Saigo Takamori’s one. When we were elementary students, we had to look at him in our history textbooks many times. However, I guess there are few people who know who drew this portrait. Now, I will introduce a man who drew Saigo’s portrait. His name is Edoardo Chiossone. He was born in Italy, and was an artist. His family was running a business of printing and plate making. So, from 14 to 22 years old, he learned copperplate engraving at an art school. Then he won the special prize and become a professor. Besides these, he won the silver prize in international exposition in Paris in 1867. After that he was interested in making paper money and got a job in a bank in Germany in 1868. At that time, this company was producing the government bills called Meiji Tsuho and he also had to do with manufacturing.

In 1875, he was invited by Okuma Shigenobu and came to Japan. Then, Okuma showed the exceptional pay for Chiossone and gave him the chance to make use of his engraving skill. Why he was invited? That’s because it was a problem for Meiji government to produce elaborate paper bills that could not be forged. If Japan continude asking the foreign company, it would have been very expensive and not safe, so Meiji government sought the person who could introduce the techniques to aim for nationalization.

I said a short while ago that Saigo Takamori’s portrait was drawn by Chiossone. However, Chiossone had never seen him and did not have his picture, so how did he draw his portrait? He got an advice from Tokuno Ryosuke he is nepotism of Saigo. And he made the image based on the model of Saigo Jyudo, Takamori’s young brother, and Oyama Iwane, Saigo brother’s cousin. And his most famous portrait is Meiji Emperor’s one.

In my opinion, Chiossone really liked his field of learning. And he contributed many things to Japan. It is not just historical event, also facts we directly touch. For instance, as I have said before, it means we learnt Japanese history in elementary school. Then, we recognized “Saigo Takamori” with that portrait that everyone knows. I am wondering about that because though the portrait was drawn a long time ago, we who are living now use it and learn history. It is interesting to connect past and present.

However, this portrait is not real. It means it is not based on Saigo himself. So, I heard an interesting fact. As you know, the statue of Saigo is in Ueno. It is based on his portrait, so this statue is also not Saigo’s real appearance. One day, his wife visited to Ueno, but she said “this is not my husband”. Is it interesting, isn’t it? In other words, we will never recognize the real Saigo’s appearance thanks to Chiossone. However, Chiossone is one of the person who gave us source of learning and significance. Now, I feel glad that he came to Japan.

Edoardo Chiossone

By Haruka Sato

Edoardo Chiossone

First, I will introduce background of Edoardo Chiossone. He was born in Italy as a son of printer in 1833. He started to learn copper-plate engraving at Academic Ligustica aged 15, graduated the institution aged 22 and then he got special prize at competition, so he became a printing instructor from 1857. He started to work at Italian national bank in 1867. 1 year later, he was sent to Dondorf-Nauman company where made Japanese banknotes in Germany. In 1875 he was invited to and arrived in Japan as a leader at Japanese National Print Bureau. He died in 1898 in Tokyo.

He made portraits of Meiji emperor and Saigo Takamori. He made over 500 products which are banknotes, postage stamps, portraits and so on in Japan.

Secondly I would like to summarize discussion. One group member mentioned that Chiossone had high potential skills for painting and making postage stamps because he was a son of printing family. That means his youth influenced his work. When he was young, he could learn many printing skills and was able to experience printing technology at his home because of son as a printing. I agree with the idea. Another said his youth was not so important for him because he just only learned printing. I was not able to understand the idea little bit, however that was very important opinion because before I heard the opinion, I only thought his youth influenced to his work, so this opinion let me notice there is another side’s opinion. When I led the discussion, it felt hard for me because sometimes my group members did not answer my question because my questions were unclear. I know that was my fault of this discussion however I wanted a little help from group members if they was not able to understand the meaning of my questions. I had to think of more specific and clearer answers and lead the discussion.

Finally, in my opinion, Edoardo was an important person for Japan because he was one of the pioneers of printing, especially postage stamps and banknotes. If he had not brought the skills to Japan at that time, we might not be able to send letters today. He was also popular as a collector of Japanese arts, so he loved Japan. I concerned he had close Japanese feelings. He could understand Japanese feeling and culture because he was collector of Japanese arts. That is why he was able to succeed in Japan. He had talent to make and lead Japanese national printing Bureau.

As I mentioned when I asked group members two questions, at first my group members did not answer them. That showed my questions were not clear to answer and not specific. When I led actually the discussion I really noticed the position of leader is difficult and hard. I had to prepare for the presentation and discussion. If I researched Edoardo Chiossone before presentation and discussion, I might come up with specific ideas. On the other hand, I thought that I could do my best to my power point. Through this project I learned the difficulty of leading members in case of discussion. I had many faults in this project, so I learned many things from these faults and I will try to be good leader next time.

<Reference>

Edoardo Chiossone Wikipedia. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edoardo_Chiossone

Edoardo Chiossone http://www.photo-make.jp/hm_2/ma_21.html

Meiji gingu Q and A http://www.meijijingu.or.jp/qa/gosai/10.html