4054 - Japan

Japan Photographer: Usui Shūsaburō Studio (active ca. 1875-1894). Views of Japan: Yokohama, Tokyo, Kamakura, Nikko, Kobe and environs. 1880s. 48 hand-colored albumen prints, mounted to album leaves. Each ca. 20,8 x 25,2 cm or reverse (album pages 27,8 x 34,4 cm). Numbered and captioned in the negatives. Bound in contemporary black-lacquered boards with gilt and polychrome decoration; gilt page edges (overall size 29 x 37 x 4 cm). The album traces a scenic itinerary from Yokohama through Tokyo and Kamakura to Nikko, before continuing to Kobe and the Osaka railway. It brings together panoramas, urban streets, temple and shrine complexes, Buddhist monuments, gardens, waterfalls, lakeside views and mountain settlements, with occasional figures animating the sequence. The selection moves deliberately between the treaty-port city, the capital, pilgrimage sites and celebrated resort landscapes, offering a comprehensive late-nineteenth-century image of Japan for the foreign traveller. – Lacquered boards with scratches, scuffing, abrasions, edge wear and small losses, particularly at the spine and corners. Leaves with overall toning, scattered foxing and occasional handling marks. Prints with occasional surface marks, light fading and minor color wear; otherwise a well-preserved and rare complete album.