Ida Trotzig

Ida Bertha Trotzig née Magnét (1864–1943) was a Swedish photographer, ethnographer, Japanologist, author and painter. From 1888, together with her husband Herman Trotzig, she spent 33 years in Japan, acquiring a profound interest in Japanese culture, especially the tea ceremony and flower arrangement. On her return to Sweden, in 1935 she managed the establishment of a Japanese tea garden near the Ethnographical Museum in the Djurgården park in central Stockholm.

Biography Born on 6 September 1865 in Kalmar, Ida Bertha Trotzig was the daughter of Jacob Henrik Magnet and his wife Bertha Amanaide (née Trotzig). When she was 20, she studied painting at the Technical School in Stockholm. In 1888, she married her maternal uncle Herman Trotzig who was firmly established in the foreign enclave in Kobe, Japan. The two had corresponded for a number of years and had grown increasingly fond of each other. They married in Germany where their close family relationship was not a problem. Shortly after their marriage, the couple moved there where her husband became chief of police.

Ida Trotzig spent the next 33 years in Japan, learning the language and taking a great interest in Japanese history and culture, in particular the tea ceremony and the art of flower arrangement, for which she received a diploma. She had spent 10 years studying to be a Japanese tea master, probably becoming the first foreigner to make the grade. In 1911, she published Cha-no-yu, japanernas teeceremoni, a richly illustrated work on the tea ceremony. The tea house burnt down in 1969 but in 1990 a new tea house was established in the same location.

Ida Trotzig died in Stockholm on 5 November 1943.