Object of the Month

Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site has a large museum collection consisting of thousands of objects, many of which are not regularly displayed in the house's furnished exhibit rooms. Every month, an object will be featured on this page, providing a look at an unusual piece from the collection.

 

Of the many objects collected and shipped to his family’s Cambridge home by Charles Longfellow during his 20-month stay in Japan from 1871-1873, perhaps the most impressive is this Buddhist altar table. Made primarily of white cedar, the table is decorated with a red lacquer, brass mounts, and carved gilt wooden elements. Some of the brass fittings feature the family crest, or “mon” of the Shimazu clan of southern Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four large islands. The Shimazu clan expanded in the late 16th and early 17th centuries to take control of Okinawa, further to the south. That may, in part, explain the use of red or vermilion lacquer on this altar table, as that color was more popular in Japan’s southern regions which often showed a heaver Chinese influence on decorative styles.

Exactly where Charles Longfellow acquired this table is unknown, but at the time of his visit the Meiji government was imposing a modernization movement on the country to transform the country from a feudalistic structure to one based on modern industrial, military, and social conventions that would better equip it to compete with western powers. One element of this strategy was the removal of Buddhism from its place in government affairs. This in turn led to the dismantling or destruction of many Buddhist temples and the removal of Buddhist priests from positions of authority. As a result, many temples’ furnishings were sold off, often to foreigners. Charles Longfellow even remarked in his journal on this, “And I only wish I were very rich, if only for the pleasure of buying these splendid things from temples . . . which in a few years will have disappeared from Japan.”

Charles sent about 30 crates of objects back home, so much that his family was unsure of what to do with them all. His father Henry referred to the shipments as “boxes without number.” As one of the largest individual pieces from Charles’s collection the altar table would have taken up considerable space in whatever room the family installed it. For a time, it was kept in Henry’s billiard room (today’s visitor center). By the early 20th century Charles’s sister Alice had the table moved into the dining room, as evidenced by inventory records and historic photographs. Originally intended as a focal point in a temple for rituals, offerings, and meditation, the Longfellow family seems to have employed it ar primarily a decorative piece. It remains on display in the Longfellows' dining room today.

 

Click here to view past Objects of the Month.