The American merchant Eugene Van Reed

With a square jawline, prominent nose, long face, and dark hair, a man sits high and proud on his horse with whip in hand. His attendant, below, also with a rather long nose, wears a hachimaki headband and an indigo happi coat with an eagle and shield in a medallion on his back. The equestrian here is the American diplomat and merchant Eugene Miller Van Reed (1835–1873). The cropped composition using a tall, narrow format with Van Reed as the dominant figure against a plain background was innovative in Japan at the time.

After meeting the shipwrecked Japanese youth Hamada Hikozo (also known as Joseph Heco), Van Reed became interested in Japan and traveled there in 1859. Initially, he worked as a clerk at the American consulate in Yokohama, and in 1866 he became the first consul general representing the Hawaiian Kingdom in Japan. In 1868 he recruited and sent the first Japanese laborers to Hawaii. Due to the difficult slave-like conditions, the Japanese government prohibited further emigration for almost two decades.

Mrs. Noble Biddle (nee Margaretta Van Reed), who was Van Reed’s sister, donated this painting in 1918 to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Their father moved the family to San Francisco shortly after the Gold Rush of 1849. Van Reed presumably commissioned the painter and woodblock artist Sadahide to paint his portrait and later gave or bequeathed it to his sister Margaretta.