Provenance:
Thomas Bryan Clarke-Thornhill (1857-1934) served as Second Secretary in the British legation in Tokyo from 1887 to 1891. Thomas Bryan Clarke-Thornhill Thomas Bryan Clarke-Thornhill was a British diplomat and collector who gave over 70 East Asian textiles and other objects to the V&A. Thomas Bryan Clarke-Thornhill was born on 13 March 1857, the first son of William Capel Clarke and Clara Thornhill. He was educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford, and joined the diplomatic corps in 1881, serving in the British legation in Tokyo in the 1880s (as Second Secretary from 1887 to 1891). Clarke-Thornhill developed a keen interest in Japanese culture and brought back several interesting textiles pieces including kesa (Buddhist mantles), fukusa (gift covers) and kimonos. He was a founder member of the Japan Society of London in 1891. Clarke-Thornhill’s first gifts to the V&A in 1905 included a Turkish prayer rug, a Persian prayer rug and a Japanese peacock feather theatrical jinbaori. In 1919, he donated a large number of Japanese netsuke (toggles) and in 1927 he offered a large number of European and Japanese textile items, including obis (sashes), kesa and fukusa. ClarkeThornhill also gave the Museum textiles pieces from other parts of the world, presumably acquired as a result of his extensive diplomatic travels. He died on 29 March 1934, aged 77, bequeathing several items of considerable importance, notably Chinese and Japanese textiles, to the Museum. He also left a collection of coins to the British Museum. Clarke-Thornhill’s obituarist noted that his interests were ‘mainly artistic’ and ‘included diverse subjects as numismatics, philately, precious stones, heraldry, zoology, and cricket’.