Calling card of the Gun Room Officers of the Japanese battleship “Kongo”, presented at Melbourne, May 1900.

A$120 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Buff-coloured card, 77 x 120 mm, lithograph printed on the recto in Japanese characters [ Officers Quarters, battleship Kongo our translation]; verso neatly inscribed in ink in English The Gun Room Officers / I[mperial] J[apanese] M[ajesty s] S[hip] Kongo / P.P.C. [i.e. Pour prendre congé] ; recto with some damage at one edge due to removal from an album mount, verso with light offsetting, otherwise good condition. In May 1900 two warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the Hi-Yei and the Kongo , visited Melbourne. They were moored at Port Melbourne for several weeks, during which time both ships made themselves available for public inspection. Provenance: Autograph album compiled by Jane Emma Murphy (Balcombe) (1845-1924), philanthropist, socialite and suffragist, of The Briars , Mornington, Victoria, Australia; thence by descent through the à Beckett family, Melbourne.

• Binding: Hardcover

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