Photo Album - Japanese Military in Colonial Korea.
Taisho 12 [ 1923]. Stock ID #220274 A fascinating concertina-folded album of high-quality photos dating from 1923 and showing Japanese military training exercises in northeastern Korea, as well as scenes of everyday life in the surrounding region including the Ranam, Cheongjin, Hoeryong and Gando areas. Many of the photos appear to have been produced by a professional photographer but acquired by the soldier who has created this album who has added his own annotations based on personal experience. When referring to this item please quote stockid 220274.
Over fifty black and white photographs annotated laid down in concertina style cloth covered photograph album 18 x 26.5cm, most photographs measure 9.3 x 13.5cm, nine measure 10 x 7cm. Some silvering of photographs but most are in very good condition.
The first photo shows an inset portrait of a soldier named Takuuchi next to the flag of the Japanese Imperial Army's 75th Infantry Division. This is followed by a series of photos of Japanese colonial buildings in Korea, including the military base of the 75th Infantry Base, an overview of the city of Hoeryong (on which the owner has placed a cross in ink marking the location of the recently contructed Hoeryong Shinto Shrine), Heoryong's hospital and railway station and a street in the city centre, an overview of Cheongjin and a panoramic overview of Ranam City (also with the Ranam Shinto Shrine marked with a cross). The attention paid to these shrines, which were crucial symbols of Japanese colonial rule, emphasises the album creator's nationalist sentiment. There are two images of the landscape of the Tuman River, and a photo of sacks of soy beans being unloaded in Gando. Other photos show scenes of everyday life, including women washing clothes and grinding grain, and two photos of a Korean wedding ceremony. A few of these photos, including one of a village of thatched-roofed houses, are in a smaller format than the images in the rest of the album and may have been taken by the album's owner himself. Twenty of the photos show 1923 training exercises conducted by the 75th Infantry Division in the Ranam area. These have also been annotated with the album owner's comments, providing extra information about the content of the photos. The album concludes with two striking images of thick ice on a river (probably the Tuman), and of the Hoeryong Shinto Shrine in late evening.
Price: $1,500.00 AU