#P38
Ca. 1905-1907
Oblong Octavo album (ca. 16,5x22,5 cm or 6 ½ x 9 in). Over 80 wove paper album leaves. With 75 original platinum photos, printed directly on the album leaves, including 16 larger images from ca. 11,5x16 cm (4 ½ x 6 ¼ in) to ca. 10x12 cm (4 x 4 ¾ in); and ten panoramas ca. 7x16,5 cm (2 ¾ x 6 ½ in); the rest of the photos are ca. 6,5x8,5 cm (2 ½ x 3 ¼ in) or slightly smaller. No captions. Period manuscript black ink title in French on one of the first leaves. Period maroon full morocco; spine with raised bands and a gilt-lettered title; both boards and the spine with gilt-tooled decorative borders; decorative endpapers with gilt-tooled ornamental borders; all edges gilt. Gilt-lettered stamp “Sinclair. Haymarket. London” on the front pastedown endpaper. Spine with cracks on the hinges, but overall a very good album of interesting photos.
Beautiful album with seventy-five original amateur snapshot platinum photos, apparently taken by French tourists during a trip to Japan in 1905-1907. Uncommonly, the photos were not pasted on the album leaves but were impressed directly on them and then bound together to comprise the album. The large images include close-up views of a Japanese guest house or a hotel, showing the entrance gates, inner gardens, pathways and verandas, and the interior of several rooms. Ten panoramic photos show a Japanese garden in winter, a European-style building (possibly, an embassy), temples and shrines, streets, gardens. The smaller photos include views of numerous temples, Mount Fuji, the Torii gate of the Itsukushima Shrine (the city of Hatsukaichi), castle walls, streets with blooming cherry trees, a street shop with a sign in English and Japanese, a waterfront residence with a waving French flag, a waterfront Japanese village, a cemetery, countryside views, portraits of Japanese people in traditional dress, a snapshot of a crowd of spectators, &c. Overall an interesting collection of lively snapshot amateur photos of Japan and its people in the early 20th century.
