Aimé Humbert
Aimé Humbert-Droz was a Swiss politician, traveler and educator. He was President of the Swiss Council of States.
Aimé Humbert was the envoy plenipotentiary of the Swiss federal government to Japan in the years 1863–1864 with the mission to conclude a treaty of trade and amity with the shogunate. The treaty he concluded with the help of the Dutch was modeled after the five unequal treaties concluded in the Ansei era with the United States, France, Britain, Russia and the Netherlands. The Swiss treaty was the first treaty Japan concluded with a land-locked nation state that had no military presence of its own in East Asia. During his stay of ten months in Nagasaki, Kanagawa and Edo, he composed a large collection of Japanese artifacts documenting popular art and life of Bakumatsu Japan. Among his collection are valuable pieces from the early work of photographer Felice Beato as well as many Japanese paintings and prints. This collection is now held at the Musée d'Ethnographie in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.Works
