A native of Maine, and a pioneer in the study of Japanese ceramics, zoologist Edward Sylvester Morse originally traveled to Japan to study brachiopods but became fascinated with porcelains and ceramics while there. His collections, which he later sold or donated to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and to the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem, MA, remains today one of the most famous and most extensive collections of Japanese ceramics and folk objects in the world.
Portrait of Edward Sylvester Morse
The Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 13, 1878