Louis Wertheimber

Louis Wertheimber (1820–1893) was an Austrian-born writer, journalist, and observer of Japanese art and culture. A scholarly source on Meiji-era art notes that he graduated from the College of California in 1864 and spent 13 years in Japan working for the Japanese government before later living in Boston and New York.

He is especially remembered for writing about Japan for English-language readers at a time when interest in Japanese art was growing in the West. His article "Chats on Art and Artists in Japan" appeared in American Art Illustrated in 1886, and his novel A Muramasa Blade: A Story of Feudalism in Old Japan was published in Boston in 1887.

Although not widely known today, his work stands out as part of an early wave of writing that helped introduce Japanese artistic life and historical imagination to American readers.