Blum went to Japan in 1890 to illustrate a series of articles for Scribner’s Magazine and spent eighteen months there working on his own projects. His illustrated three-part article on his experiences appeared in Scribner’s in 1893 and included an image titled "The Ameya," on which he based this painting. He wrote of an illustration of another ameya, or candy blower: “Very interesting things they do certainly perform... using the candy like a glassblower his lump of molten glass, and producing results, if hardly as beautiful or durable, certainly as artistic and finished as regards workmanship.”
Credit: Gift of Estate of Alfred Corning Clark, 1904
By 1893
Oil on canvas
63.7 x 78.9cm
04.31
Image and text © Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019
Where you'll find this
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Permanent collection