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Japan. [graphic].
Title
Japan
Description
Trade card promoting coffee manufacturers Arbuckle Brothers and depicting Japanese men acrobats, jugglers, and dancers in a festival. In the left, shows a Japanese man acrobat wearing a chonmage hairstyle, a white headband, a pink kimono, and pink pants. He balances upside down on a flagpole with a pink banner and holds a fan in his right hand. In the right, a Japanese man, wearing a blue kimono, juggles a bottle and bowls. In the center is a fan with a vignette depicting three barefooted Japanese men, attired in black hats, yellow shirts, and blue pants, dancing holding branches. A Japanese man stands, attired in a black hat and green shirt, and holds a pink banner on a pole. Arbuckle's Coffee was founded by brothers John and Charles Arbuckle following the Civil War. The company was one of the first to sell roasted coffee and to place it in one pound packages. Arbuckle often included trade cards in the packages., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Copyright, 1893, by Arbuckle Bros. N.Y., Series no. on verso: No. 34., Advertising text on verso: Grind your coffee at home…. Japan. The Japanese have the most advance civilization of any nation on Asiatic soil. Indeed in some regards they are even more advanced than the proudest of western countries. But in many ways they are ludicrously far behind. They cling to ancient forms of government and the Mikado is an autocrat, absolute almost over the life and death of his subjects. A country which yields such power to the individual, can never hope to work out its highest possibilities. So even the sports and pastimes of such a nation can never be the spontaneous expression of the animal spirits of the young of that land. Juggling is a fine art in Japan. Beside the Japanese juggler, the man of legerdemain of other countries is a clumsy bungler. The feats performed by the former are beyond all comparison. To achieve such dexterity, it may well be presumed that the wizard has been taught from earliest childhood. In fact the jugglers are sometimes a caste, so that the child often starts with the hereditary traits of forefather in the same line, and of the added experience of these. Of the acrobats of Japan who are also super-eminent much the same can be said. One would scarcely believe that the human body could be so sinuous and might be so contorted at will. The Japanese Festivals or Feasts are frequent. The main celebrations are held after dark; then fireworks are displayed, and lanterns are hung. These latter transform the most commonplace scenes into fairyland. The dancing indulged in on these occasions in most picturesque. As the figures flit from light into dark and back again, they form scenes never to be forgotten. The Japanese wrestlers are world-famed, and their contests are most skillful. This is one of a series of Fifty (50) cards giving a pictorial History of Sports and Pastimes of all Nations., RVCDC
Date
1893
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department trade card - Arbuckle [P.2025.35.1]