JAPAN. COLLECTION ARCHIVE KOJIRO MATSUKATA (1866-1950) The most important Japanese private collection of French art from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Set of 16 documents 1920-1926

Set of 16 documents 1920-1926 ; 84 p. Correspondence, invoices and insurance contracts, concerning works by artists such as Besnard, Bonnard, Boudin, Blanche Carolus-Duran, Carrière, Cézanne, Corot, Courbet, Daumier, Degas, Delacroix, Denis, Dinet, Fantin-Latour, Forain, Flandrin, Gauguin, Henner, Ingres, Lebasque, Manet, Marquet, Matisse, Millet, Monet, Moreau, Picasso, Pissarro, Puvis de Chavannes, Puy, Renoir, Rodin, Roll, Roussel, Signac, Sisley, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Dongen, Van Gogh, Whistler, etc. A wealthy Japanese shipowner and son of a Meiji era prime minister, Matsukata Kôjirô built up a fabulous collection of French art with the ambition of creating a museum in his country. The financial crisis and the war ruined his project. His collection was kept in London and Paris during the interwar period, but the London part disappeared in a fire in 1939, while the Paris part was sequestered in 1944 - it was only returned to Japan in 1953 after long negotiations. The Matsukata collection formed the core of the present National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, built by Le Corbusier.