?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
(JAPAN) Pair of albums with a total of 96 photographs, each with 48 beautifully hand-colored photographs depicting the landscapes, towns, temples, and inhabitants of Japan. Albumen prints, each approximately 8x10 inches (20.3x25.4 cm.), and the reverse, nearly all with an inventory number and caption, in English, in the negative. Oblong 4tos, 1/2 leather over gilt-lettered boards, backstrips partially perished, corners lightly rubbed and worn; with an American manufacturer's imprint at the rear pastedown of one album. 1890s
The bindings of albums are worn and one lacks a backstrip. Internally, the majority of the mounts are clean and bright, and the photographs are delicately hand-tinted (and mounted recto/verso).
The albumen paper utilized for these prints has a distinct purplish overtone and the hand-tinting is, overall, especially well done, with an application of transparent pigment that is quite artful. The photographs are generally in excellent condition, with a some edge fading. However, prints #532, #531, and #519 in the first album display mottling in the sky area as does #953 in the second album. The second album also includes 11 captions in Japanese calligraphy in the negative.
