Women as Active Agents of Japonisme in the Dual Monarchy

This contribution groups the disparate activities of women in the Dual Monarchy according to the modalities of engagement with elements of Japonisme. The first is ownership: acquiring and curating Japanese objects as part of a collection, either private or public. The second is performative identity: embodying Japanese feminine personas as part of a form of social performance: travel, parties, theatre plays. The third is production: making Japan-related artefacts with varying degrees of aesthetic intention. These three modalities are often intertwined within the activity of a single person, thus cannot be described as a fixed, but more like an organic structure, which is further configured by the intensity, or progressive levels of engagement.