Oriental Art Exhibition

Photographer unknown, Canadian
Unidentified Women in Asian Costume, Oriental Gallery, Natural History Society Museum, Saint John, New Brunswick, January 1924
gelatin silver print on card; 21.7 x 27.7 cm

Natural History Society of New Brunswick
January 1924

Early acquisitions of Asian artefacts coming in from New Brunswick missionaries inspired the Natural History Society of New Brunswick to organize an Oriental Art Exhibition, which opened in January 1924. Members of the Ladies’ Association of the Natural History Society are shown in the above photograph. They are dressed in costumes from India, China and Japan.

Donations of Asian material given by Dr. Hanington in 1919, Dr. Travis in 1923 and Loretta Shaw in 1923 and 1924 were all displayed in this exhibition. As mentioned above, Dr. Travis’ donation was sent directly from China, which implies that she was collecting objects with the specific intention of sending them to the Natural History Society.

This exhibition is a key event in the Museum’s history, signalling the fact that, by 1924, Asian fine and decorative arts were an important and substantial part of the Natural History Society collections. They formed the foundation upon which later Asian collections were built.