Description: 1890 Japanese Ambrotype of two Japanese women, one seated on a chair and dressed in HAKAMA, while the other one, dressed in KIMONO, is standing next to a pedestal table on which is placed flowers. Inscription: On the lid: 写真 SHASHIN / Photo. Outside the box: MEIJI NI JU SAN NEN SHOKA GO GATSU NI JU GO SHA NISHINA UME. (Photo) in MEIJI 23 in early summer on May 25 NISHINA UME.Provenance: From the ambrotype collection of Christian Fassin and Iwami Kita, Hokkaido, Japan. Free priority shipping, (Will and want to ship to Japan as I consider this as an important Japanese ambrotype photograph outside of any museum, signature required. 2 Week 100% money back guaranteed if not matching description (minus shipping).. When Japan opened its ports to the West in the 1850s, photography—called “shashin”, literally, “a copy of truth”, soon became widely available. High-end professional salons and open-air studios operated by itinerant practitioners offered portraits at every price range. While the popularity of ambrotypes, a positive photograph on glass, was short-lived in the United States, Japanese ambrotypes were in demand from the early 1870s until the end of the nineteenth century. Housed in poetry-inscribed kiri-wood boxes, they provide an intimate and rare glimpse of how modern Japanese society represented itself.James Ambrose Cutting patented the ambrotype process in 1854. Ambrotypes were most popular in the mid-1850s to mid-1860s. Cartes de visite and other paper print photographs, easily available in multiple copies, replaced them. An ambrotype is comprised of an underexposed glass negative placed against a dark background. The dark backing material creates a positive image. Photographers often applied pigments to the surface of the plate to add color, often tinting cheeks and lips red and adding gold highlights to jewelry, buttons, and belt buckles. Ambrotypes were sold in either cases or ornate frames to provide an attractive product and also to protect the negative with a cover glass and brass mat. The collodion positive, or ambrotype, first appeared in about 1853. By the 1860s the process had largely disappeared from high street studios, but it remained popular with itinerant open-air photographers until the 1880s, because portraits could be made in a few minutes while sitters waited.Kiri wood (case) is native to Japan and is akin to balsa wood (except stronger). Proper name is “Paulownia” and is known in Japan as kiri (桐), specifically referring to P. tomentosa; it is also known as the "Princess tree" or the ”Phoenix tree”. Paulownia is the mon of the office of the Japanese prime minister, and also serves as the Government Seal of Japan used by the Cabinet and the Government of Japan (whereas the chrysanthemum is the Imperial Seal of Japan).
Price: 830 USD
Location: Thousand Oaks, California
End Time: 2024-10-16T20:48:58.000Z
Shipping Cost: 0 USD
Product Images
Item Specifics
All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Production Technique: Ambrotype
Framing: Kiri wood case
Country/Region of Manufacture: Japan
Style: Documentary
Material: Kiri wood case, Glass
Theme: Historical
Format: Ambrotype
Type: Photograph
Features: Kiri Case, One of a Kind (OOAK)
Antique: Yes
Number of Photographs: 1
Vintage: Yes
Image Orientation: Portrait
Subject: Women
Autograph Format: Hard Signed
Signed: No
Original/Licensed Reprint: Original
Year of Production: 1890
Image Color: Black & White
Time Period Manufactured: 1880-1899
Unit of Sale: Single Piece