Tomitaro Hara

Facsimile of Mukul Dey’s letter
Photo: Mukul Dey ArchivesEnglish Translation and Facsimile

Yokohama
19.6.1916

Dear Father,

Couple of days ago we came here from Tokyo. Gurudev and the others have arrived as well. We are staying with a very famous Japanese millionaire here.

‘Kiyo-san’, brush and ink sketch by Mukul Dey, done at Tomitaro Hara’s Sankeien, 1916.
Photo: Mukul Dey ArchivesAn Art Lover Extraordinaire of Meiji Japan

“A successful silk merchant named Tomitaro Hara built a mansion by the sea in Honmoku. He bought exquisite teahouses and other ancient structures in Kyoto and elsewhere and had them dismantled and rebuilt in his garden. Hara named his garden Sankeien, for it was blessed with three glens, one of which opened out to a small beach and a view of the bay”

So wrote Kunio Francis Tanabe in his article Memories of Old Honmoku in The Japan Times of May 19, 1999.