Landing of Commodore Perry, Officers and Men of the Squadron, to Meet the Imperial Commissioners at Simoda [sic], Japan, June 8, 1854, 1855
Shimoda, Japan
Eliphalet M. Brown Jr.
Lithograph with hand-coloring on paper

Artists Eliphalet Brown Jr. and William Heine accompanied Commodore Matthew Perry on his expedition to establish U.S. diplomatic and trade relations with Japan, which had previously held a 220-year-old policy of isolation. Following the Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854, Japan opened the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade. Shimoda was also the site of the first U.S. consulate in the country.

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of August Belmont IV, NPG.82.110