Vintage 19th Century Japanese Photo Album with Hand Tinted Albumen Prints, Studio of Kusakabe Kimbei

19th Century Japanese photo album

日本のビンテージ写真集

A photo album of original albumen prints, hand coloured, of Japanese subjects. Generally with a good tonal range and detailed colouring.

Where we have been able to specifically identify images, they have all been from the studio of Kusakabe Kimbei, 日下部 金幣.

It is also possible that some of the photographs are not by Kusakabe, as he also sold composite photo albums during the 1880s-1890s (and buyers of Japanese souvenir photographs also compiled their own albums). The subject matter overall, is however consistent with the entries for Kusakabe in Terry Bennett's 'Old Japanese Photographs; Collector's Data Guide' (Quaritch, 2006).

The album contains: 

30 mounted albumen prints;

8 albumen prints, unmounted and housed in loose double sided paper mounts; 

1 loose unmounted albumen print.

(39 photographic prints in total).

Subjects include:

Yokohama: Harbour; Consulate Street; View of Bund; Mississippi Bay.

Yenoshima: Views, Street, Cave.

Tonosawa: View.

Miyanoshita: View/Hot Spring.

Hakone: Ashinoyu Hot Spring near, View of Hakone Lake, Hakone Lake to Fujiyama, Ojigoku Great Boiling Springs.

Shinigawa: Shell-Picking on the shore.

The Railway from Kanagawa to Yokohama.

Temple at Shiba Tokio.

Nikko: Bronze Gate and Tomb, Iyeyasu Temple, Chiuzenji Lake.

...and other temples and landscapes.

The album is bound with black lacquer covers and nicely detailed raised designs to front and rear. The leather spine had losses and wear to the tail. The lacquer covers with bumping, scuffs and some chips, but overall presents a most attractive appearance.

Inside the mounted prints are generally very good - nicely detailed and with good colour. The first spread has markings to mount pages and facing endpaper. Many of the prints have descriptive labels pasted on the mounts. The loose leaf prints are of lesser quality with a lower tonal range and the hand colouring is now less effective. A few of these unmounted prints also have some wear or adhesion marks.

Overall a high quality album of interesting Japanese photography.

Album Dimensions: approximately 275mm high x 358mm wide x 45mm deep.

Typical print size: approximately 204mm x 250mm (approx 10" x 8").

Approximate weight of album  2.83kg (unpacked).