JAPAN [supplied title]. AN ALBUM OF 50 HAND-TINTED ALBUMEN PHOTOS OF JAPANESE VIEWS AND SCENES OF DAILY LIFE
[various places in Japan: ca. 1890s?]. Oblong patterned cloth souvenir album, 12 x 15 in.. bound with tassel ties at left margin. Inset illustration of a koi fish, 7 x 9 1/4 in. on front cover, signed with two square hanko stamps. Some soiling and fraying to cloth, which has also pulled away from the right edge of the front cover revealing the plain paper cover below; blank front endpaper creased. The hand-tinted photos are laid down, one to a page, on each side of a double-folded manila sheet, and protected by tissue guards. Most are approx. 7 3/4 x 10 in. and are identified with printed captions and numbers in the lower right corner. Many can be recognized as the work of Kusakabe Kimbei (1841-1943) or his studio. The images include: Festival Lanterns, Bentendori Yokohama; Mississippi Bay near Yokohama; Uyeno Park, Tokio; Iris Garden at Horikiri, Tokio; Wisteria, Kameida, Tokyo; Sacred Bridge, Nikko; Chiusenji Lake, Nikko; Daibutsu Bronze Image, Kamakura; View of Atami; Inside Tea House Tonosawa; Fujiya Hotel at Myanoshita; Fujiyama from Hakone Lake; Awaji-Shima Inland Sea; Nakajima, Nagasaki; etc., plus several studio photos of young Japanese women in traditional dress, rice planters, children playing hop scotch, a flower seller, patrons and customers at a silk store, etc. All of the photos are very good, the colors bright. Item #70530
Likely all of the images in this album are products of the photographic studio of Kusakabe Kimbei in Yokohama. Although they do not bear his stamp, the numbered photos and captions can be identified in catalogues of his work. Kusakabe Kimbei trained under Felice Beato (ca.1825-1907), an Italian living in Japan, first as a colorist and later as a photographer. He opened his own studio in 1881 and his images often captured the fast vanishing world of old Japan. [see: Chris Kincaid's essay "Felice Beato and Kimbei Kusakabe, Photographers of 1800s Japan," (Japan Powered: 2018)].
Price: $1,250.00