Japanese Life.
Tokyo: Kazumasa Ogawa, [1892]. Kazumasa Ogawa. First Edition. Bound in stiff decorated wraps with stabbed binding using silk ties. Folio. Pp. [11]. Featuring 27 black and white photos with captions on 11 plates, each plate with a tissue guard. Wear and soiling commensurate with age, with corners rounded and occasional slight, closed tears along fore-edge of two or three plates, each less than an inch. With an errata sheet bound in. Good+. Item #3409
This is not a volume in Ogawa's "Illustrations of Japanese Life," a small-format series on various subjects published from 1890s-1910s, but a large folio volume in a series published with uniform covers. The publications provides a fascinating glimpse into Meiji-era Japan in which the traditional Japanese aesthetic is slightly Americanized. In the 1880s Ogawa studied photography in Boston; occasionally his captions here reflect the whimsy popular in the US at that time: "Country Belles in Their Best" or "He is Coming? Let Us Look Pretty!" or "The Policeman and His Catch." Scarce.
Price: $750.00