Snapshots of the Past

[James Watt inventor of the steam engine] – Historic Print

[James Watt inventor of the steam engine], 1850 — historic print
[James Watt inventor of the steam engine], 1850. Historic print from the Japanese Prints collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

This historic print of [James Watt inventor of the steam engine] brings a moment of history to your wall. Sourced directly from the Library of Congress, it represents an authentic piece of documented history.

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[James Watt inventor of the steam engine]

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Here James Watt appears in a Japanese color woodcut, not in a workshop or laboratory but in a kitchen, where he gathers steam from a boiling kettle while an exasperated aunt scolds him for his nonsense. The scene draws on the familiar story of Watt's boyhood fascination with a kettle's lid, which later informed his improvements to the steam engine in the 1760s and 1770s. The record credits the novelist Takizawa Bakin, who died in 1848, yet dates the print to 1850, so the attribution and date are worth checking against other sources. The picture is a striking example of how a Western engineer was introduced to Edo-period viewers through a domestic joke.

Created / published1850
CreatorTakizawa Bakin 1767-1848.
Medium1 print on hōsho paper : woodcut color ; 33.5 x 23.2 cm. (block) 36 x 25.2 cm. (sheet)
NotesTitle devised by Library staff. Extensive unidentified Japanese writing on backing sheet of paper. Annotation written in pencil on mount: James Watt 1736-1819. Typescript caption on mount: James Watt inventor of the steam engine collects steam from a boiling kettle while his aunt rebukes him for his nonsense. Annotations stamps etc. on verso of print: 186; 47623a (white label); 42; LC2585. Yokohama : prints from nineteenth-century Japan / Ann Yonemura. Washington D.C. : Arthur M. Sackler Gallery : Smithsonian Institution Press c1990 no. 73 (p. 171) Earlier control number: 236.3-34. Gift; Mrs. E. Crane Chadbourne; 1930; (DLC/PP-1930:47623a). Forms part of: Chadbourne collection of Japanese prints (Library of Congress).
SubjectsWatt James 1736-1819. Inventors--1850-1900. Steam--1850-1900.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan1,074 × 1,536 px · prints to 4 × 5 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-JFP-227701

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