Charles Ziegler was a textile dealer from Winterthur who established a leading silk export company in Yokohama in 1864. He became a key person in the Swiss community in Yokohama and took an active part in early Western studies on Japan conducted by Swiss visitors. Notably, Charles Ziegler was also the first Swiss person to climb Mount Fuji.
His archives currently belong to the University of Zurich and are being studied as a part of “Swiss Japan Project.” Photographs and written records provide us with a valuable source of information about the life of the Swiss community in Japan and on Swiss-Japanese trade. Research in these archives plays an important part in reconstructing Swiss-Japanese networks of interaction.
Charles Ziegler bought and brought back to Switzerland numerous Japanese objects: bronzes, porcelains, lacquer wares, paintings, woodblock prints and textiles. They are dispersed in various locations in Switzerland and are waiting to be surveyed.