Historic Photo Print - Newport - Karama a Japanese romance by Vivian

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Filed under Newport, this print is linked to a work titled *Karama*, described as a Japanese romance by Vivian, so its connection to the town rests on that title rather than on any visible street or building. Japanese themes were fashionable in Western literature and stage entertainment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, part of the wider japonisme taste that followed Japan's opening to trade. Such works often blended invented plots with exotic costume and scenery, so the picture is best read as a window onto period taste as much as a record of a real place. Newport, a fashionable seaside resort in its heyday, was a natural setting for this kind of cultural entertainment.

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