308 - [PHOTOGRAPHY] [JAPAN] A significant album of 31 photographs of Japan, documenting a trip to Japan taken toward the end of the 19th century.

[PHOTOGRAPHY] [JAPAN] A significant album of 31 photographs of Japan, documenting a trip to Japan taken toward the end of the 19th century. Large-format photographs offering a very broad panorama of Japan’s major cultural sites (including the Great Buddha of Kamakura and the ancient pagoda at Tenjō-ji in Kobe) as well as picturesque scenes and much more anecdotal glimpses of daily life—which, in themselves, may be more documentary in nature (views of waterfalls, rustic landscapes, anglers, shopping alleys lined with cherry blossoms, fishermen in “fundoshi” (traditional Japanese undergarments) pushing a boat out to sea, alleys with cherry blossoms, etc.) With its beautiful hand-painted colors, this album is comparable to the Yokohama Shashin, although it differs from them in several respects. On this subject, the Yokohama Shashin exhibition — Japan in Color, April–June 2022: “These photographs, known as Yokohama Shashin because they were offered to travelers upon their arrival in Yokohama, left a lasting impression on people of the time due to the exceptional quality of their coloring. They are an invaluable testament to a Japan that was then opening up to the world and possessed a unique artistic expertise. As early as the Meiji period, Japan was nicknamed ‘the Land of Photography,’ and hand-colored photographs were particularly prized in the West. Produced for tourists, they were far more valuable at the time than Japanese woodblock prints, which held little interest for most visitors." These albums typically featured captions on each photograph, and the images were generally staged or intended to represent Japan’s most classic landscapes, customs, and traditions; this is not necessarily the case in this album: one might wonder whether these photographs were taken at the request of an important visitor and the album then custom-made in one of Yokohama’s many workshops. The more “documentary” nature of this album sets it apart, in a way, from albums intended solely for tourists, which contain photos that are certainly of higher quality—often sharper—but stereotypical. Some photos have imperfections, paper flecks, and small tears; the colors are occasionally slightly faded. The binding is worn and likely once featured a lacquer decoration, which is no longer present. Large oblong folio