Feb 14, 2017 - Sale 2436

Sale 2436 - Lot 19

Price Realized: $ 4,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,500
KUSAKABE KIMBEI (1841-1934)
A rich album with 50 photographs of Japan, each artfully hand-colored. Including sweeping landscapes, temples, detailed occupational scenes (including greeting and tea images, women eating rice, and playing what appears to be a badminton), studio portraits, and naturalistic outdoor scenes. Hand-colored albumen prints, the images measuring 8x10 1/4 inches (20.3x26 cm.), and the reverse, mounted recto/verso, most with an inventory number and caption in the negative; 3 with a small printed label. Large oblong folio, black lacquer pictorial covers with inset ivory and gilt highlights, the image depicting a man pulling a woman in a rickshaw and Mt. Fuji; leather backstrip; all edges gilt; with Kimbei's small oval hand stamp on the front pastedown; and in the original decorative cloth box. 1890s

Additional Details

Kimbei opened his own Yokohama studio in 1880, and became incredibly popular with tourists. He seems to have previously worked as a colorist to Felice Beato and Baron Raimond von Stillfried, and the images from his studio are remarkable for their fine hand-coloring and elegant presentation. His inventory included his own imagery as well as images from those studios that preceded him in Japan.

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