As Japan entered the Meiji Period, commercial photo studios begun by the likes of Hikoma Ueno and Renjo Shimooka in the last days of the Tokugawa Shogunate became widespread throughout the country. It was only natural, therefore, that a large number of such photo studios were concentrated in Tokyo, the center of modernization, or "Bunmei-kaika" (civilization and enlightenment). The portrait introduced here is part of a collection of 80 such portraits taken in photo studios, mostly in Tokyo, in the first 30 years of the Meiji Era.
Tinted photographs made as souvenirs for foreign tourists (main collection)
Such photos, made by applying ukiyo-e techniques to color-tint monochrome prints, were called "Yokohama photographs" and were produced in abundance from the 1880s just until the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. This album contains 50 photos, including works featuring landscapes and architecture, i.e., Nagasaki, Kobe, Osaka, Yokohama, the Toshogu Shrine in Nikko, as well as photos of Japanese men and women wearing kimonos and posing for the camera. English captions accompany the photos. The hard wooden cover shows a relief of a woman in a kimono riding a rickshaw with Mt. Fuji in the background.
Portrait taken in a photo studio
Tinted photographs sold as souvenirs to foreign tourists
