MEIJI PERIOD PHOTO ALBUM with 50 Hand-Colored Albumen Photographs

@1892. Hardcover. Photographs are Fine and bright with tissue guards. Both boxes in nice shape. The front cover of the album with a horizontal crack about 3 inches from the bottom and extending across most of the cover doing little to detract from the lovely decorative scene. Overall a beautiful example, uncommon in such nice condition. Oblong Folio (14" x 10-1/2") with a black morocco leather spine with gilt designs and exquisite black enamel painted and onlaid covers. Containing 50 hand-colored 10-1/4" x 7-3/4" albumen photographs laid down onto heavy cardboard pages titled in the negative in English and with small color drawings of figures in the margins of each page. Images include cityscapes, landmarks, and scenes of daily life and rituals in mid-to-late Meiji period Japan. Places shown include Tokyo, Kyoto, Yokohama, Nagoya, Enoshima, the shrines of Nikko, and two views of Mt. Fuji. Occupational scenes include women spinning cotton, men striking wheat, a rice plantation, men transporting rice bales on horseback, a samurai, a Shinto priest, Shinto pilgrims, a "blind shampooer," a pottery shop, a shoe shop, a grocery, a cloth store, "reading at home," "gathering the cocoons," "playing at ball," and more. Albums such as this were sold to overseas visitors to Japan, ca 1880s- early 1900s, who would choose their favorite scenes from the photography studio's stock and whether to pay extra for hand-coloring, fine binding, and artistic covers. We have offered a handful of examples over the years, and this is easily the finest in content, with more occupational and daily life scenes as opposed to the standard landmarks, as well as special touches such as the small hand-painted characters in the margins of each page, and also in the finest condition. Housed in a clamshell box with decorative cloth covers and likely the original tin container used for shipment to America.