A series of six color lithographs by Wilhelm Heine and Eliphalet Brown documenting the Japanese expedition under Commodore Perry, 1855.

Eliphalet Brown created these six hand-colored lithographs based on watercolors by artist Wilhelm Heine, both of whom were chosen to accompany the Perry expedition. Brown was a well-established daguerreotypist, lithographer, and artist working for the Currier and Ives Company in New York City and Heine, a German-American artist, already had experience documenting a diplomatic visit to Central America. In addition to publishing these lithographs, Brown took over 400 photographs during the two-year journey, though most were destroyed in a fire at the printer’s once they returned in the US.