3-056-212 - The London Archives (City of London)/Heritage Images

The Only Tannaker and Only Japanese Native Village, Hyde Park, 1886. 'New and Novel Entertainments; Extensive Alterations and Additions have been made'. Advertisement for Tannaker Buhicrosan's 'Japanese Village' depicting a woman in Japanese traditional dress, including an obi and kimono and hiyori geta shoes. The 'Japanese Village' was a commercial exhibition of Japanese culture located in Humphreys' Hall, Knightsbridge, London, from January 1885 until June 1887. The exhibition employed around 100 Japanese men and women in a setting built to resemble a traditional Japanese village. As a result of the opening up of Japan to trade with Britain in the 1850s, an English craze for all things Japanese had grown through the 1860s and 1870s, fed by the colonial British perception of Japan as a medieval culture. Over a million people visited the exhibition. This was just one of the ways in which Dutch-born Buhicrosan, also known as Frederik Blekman, exploited Japan and its culture for his own gain.