Kuki Ryūichi (1850–1931), the first Director of the Imperial Museum in Tokyo (presently Tokyo National Museum), drew up a guideline for collecting antiquities in 1894, at a time when the first Sino-Japanese war (1894–95) broke out. This guideline lays out the benefits of collecting Chinese and Korean antiquities during Japanese military operations and thus provides important context for understanding the Japanese imperialist perspective on taking objects from China and Korea to Japan over the following decades.

commented by Ji Young Park

→ read more