Japanese Photograph Album of the Late Meiji Period.
[Japan]. (Circa 1890s). Stock ID #215089 Beautiful studio album containing a collection of 50 hand coloured photos of Japan, with a splendid lacquered and decorated cover. The photos were commercially produced images which were sold to foreign visitors who had the studio place photographs in an album of their choice. This album is unusually interesting because (unlike many where photographs were more randomly placed) the images have been selected and arranged geographically, beginning in Tokyo and moving southwards: Nikko, Yokohama, Miyanoshita & Hakone Lake, Mount Fuji, Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe and Nagasaki. When referring to this item please quote stockid 215089.
50 hand-tinted albumen prints (30 captioned with studio stock references) mounted on thick gilt-edged card leaves19.5 x 25 cms, in an album 27.5 x 35 cms; elaborately lacquered boards (scuffed and chipped) inlaid with mother of pearl (with loss) over quarter calf (renewed), bevelled edges, gilt dentelles, endpapers gilt-flecked, some fading and spotting to the images and toning to the margins of the card leaves, but a very good, handsomely bound collection.
There are fine images and portraits of geisha, including an uncaptioned image of geisha seated, possibly by the Kamo River in Kyoto, entertaining a male guest. A lute is placed on the rice mat together with a tray of beer. One of the geisha is looking straight to camera, a striking composition. Another uncaptioned, in the Kyoto group, is likely to be in Arashiyama, shows a sandalled figure on a mountain path overlooking the leisure boating below.
There are also images of pagoda, fishing, rice planting, street vendors and markets.
More than half the photographs appear to be from the studio of the Yokohama based photographer Tamamura Kozaburo (c.1856-192?) who at his height was described as "the best photographer in Yokohama". As Terry Bennett has attested, Tamamura's business strategy of selling souvenir albums of views and costumes to foreigners became a "winning formula". (see Terry Bennett, "Early Japanese Images", Tuttle 1996, and "Photography in Japan 1853-1912", Tuttle 2006)
Price: $2,950.00 AU