Matsumoto Ryōjun

Portrait of Matsumoto Jun

Template:Japanese name Matsumoto Jun (松本順, Matsumoto Jun) (also known as Matsumoto Ryōjun 松本良順) (1832-1907) was a Japanese physician who served as the personal physician to the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu. He also studied photography with J. L. C. Pompe van Meerdervoort (1829 - 1908), though he was somewhat unimpressed with his instructor's skills, once describing the result of one of Pompe van Meerdervoort's photographic experiments as "a meagre black shadow".

When Swiss photographer Pierre Rossier arrived in Japan in 1859, Matsumoto ordered Maeda Genzō to assist Rossier. Maeda subsequently became a pioneering Japanese photographer. Another link between Matsumoto and photography dates from some point between 1857 and 1859 when he adopted the 13-year-old future photographer Uchida Kuichi.

In the Meiji era, he maintained his relations with former retainers of the shogun. He also was instrumental in helping Nagakura Shinpachi and Saitō Hajime build a monument to the Shinsengumi at Itabashi.

References

• Bennett, Terry. Early Japanese Images (Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1996), 54-56.
• Himeno, Junichi. "Encounters With Foreign Photographers: The Introduction and Spread of Photography in Kyushu". In Reflecting Truth: Japanese Photography in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, Mikiko Hirayama. (Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2004), pp. 21-22.