An album of 50 hand-coloured albumen prints of people and scenes of Japan.
Category
Photographs
Date
1870 - 1900
Materials
Measurements
138 x 187 x 45 mm
Collection
Fox Talbot Museum, Wiltshire
NT 1520767
Summary
An album of 50 hand-coloured albumen prints depicting people and scenes of Japan. This is likely a Yokohama tourist trade photograph album which probably dates to the 1880s-90s. The album covers are laquered wood with hand painted scene of a man pulling a jinrikisha carrying a woman with an umbrella. There are a mountain, house and trees in the background. The faces of both the man and the woman are a white ivory (or ivory appearing) inlay. The back cover has a very subdued flower and leaf pattern. The covers measure 138 mm x 187 mm, and the individual photographs measure approximately 88 mm x 134 mm. The photographs are mounted on thick white card. Some of the landscape scenes have captions in the negative. The album pages are in concertina format. The first series/set of 25 photographs opens out in a continuous sheet from front to back. The second set/set of 25 photographs opens out from back to front (on the obverse of the mat with the first set.) The focus of the first series of photographs is women and groups. The focus of the second series of photographs is scenic spots. The album carries no information as to the source/photographer or studio. It is often difficult to identify early Japanese photographers. Many Japanese tourist photographs do not include photographer credits. Studios and shops frequently produced albums using the work of various photographers without attribution and without using the original captions or studio numbers. Another difficulty in attribution comes from the widespread practice of selling negatives from one to studio to another. In 1877, the company of Stillfried and Anderson acquired Felice Beato’s studio and stock. They subsequently incorporated Beato’s negatives into their own, which Adolfo Farsari then acquired in 1885. Some of these photographs also appeared in albums produced by Kusakabe Kimbei. When one studio acquired the negatives of another, it also acquired the right to make a print from that negative and include it in an album bearing the studio’s name. Information taken from: http://hcl.harvard.edu/collections/epj/tourist_photography.cfm
Provenance
Part of the Fenton Collection. A gift from British Film Institute in 2017. From 1986-1999, part of BFI collection for the Museum of the Moving Image. BFI purchased collection in 1986 from James Fenton's Museum of Photography, Port Erin, Isle of Man 1976-1986