Russian Admiral

A Russian admiral wearing a red-plumed bicorn hat stands against a blank background in this painting by an anonymous artist active in the city of Nagasaki, Japan’s most important international port during the Edo period. Nagasaki was one of only three Japanese ports open to Russia after the two countries signed their first official trade treaty in the mid-1850s. Some Nagasaki artists, many of whom remain anonymous, specialized in printed and painted images of the curious foreigners they encountered in the city.