Sigisbert Chrétien Bosch Reitz, known as Gijs, was born to a wealthy family in Amsterdam. He started his career as a merchant but at the age of twenty-three decided to become an artist instead. After briefly attending the local art academy in the Rijksmuseum, he continued his studies in Munich, finishing his training at the Académie Julian in Paris under Bouguereau. Back in the Netherlands, he settled in Katwijk aan Zee, soon to leave again for Paris to participate in the Exposition Universelle in 1889, followed by an extended stay in England before returning to The Netherlands.

Bosch Reitz did not settle down in his hometown, but moved to the region of the Gooi in 1892, first in Eemnes, then Laren. Between each move, he travelled extensively to France, the United States, and Japan in 1900, becoming a world-renowned connoisseur. In 1914 he was invited to curate the Asian collection at the Louvre, but due to the war, he left for New York. In June 1915, he was appointed as the first curator of the newly created Department of Far Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where he remained until 1927 when he returned to Amsterdam.

Bosch Reitz’s artistic output is relatively small because of his slow process and incredible attention to detail. Even his simplest, decorative works are the result of lengthy, concentrated effort. No longer satisfied with the naturalistic representation of the world around them, Dutch Symbolists such as Bosch Reitz started to express their individualized, often spiritual, experiences around 1890.

Vegetation and floral elements were no longer just part of the decorative vocabulary but became symbolic for themes of life and death in highly stylized forms, against a stark plain background. In contrast to his contemporary Vincent van Gogh, who never traveled to Japan, Bosch-Reitz’s art was not merely inspired by Japonism, the fashionable movement at the end of the nineteenth century, but also reflected a deep knowledge of artists from the Edo period as he was an international Asian art expert. For Morning Glory Bosch Reitz explored the inventiveness of Utagawa Hiroshige, whose woodblock prints are in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, most likely accessioned for the museum by Bosch Reitz.