The great majority of the images on Old Photos of Japan are from the Duits Collection, an exceptional private collection of images and ephemera of Japan between the 1850s and 1960s.
The collection was launched in 2007 by Kjeld Duits (kyelt doo-its), a Dutch journalist, photographer and producer, who has made Japan his home since 1982.
It features rare vintage albumen prints, gelatin silver photographs, stereoviews, glass slides, negatives, film positives, postcards, early collotype photo books, but also vintage maps, magazines, newspapers, hikifuda advertising flyers, paper money, and artworks like ukiyoe and art postcards.
The main focus of the collection is imagery that portrays daily life in Japan. Particularly customs, people at work, street views and architecture.
Many hundreds of artists, studios and publishers are represented in the Duits Collection, even countless amateur photographers.
It contains especially many works by Japanese photographers Kimbei Kusakabe and Nobukuni Enami, who were active in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Other famous names in the collection are Felice Beato, Baron Raimund von Stillfried, Adolfo Farsari, Kuichi Uchida, Kazumasa Ogawa, Teijiro Takagi, Julian Chochrane, Kitazawa Rakuten, and Georges Bigot.
Old Photos of Japan also publishes (and represents) images from the following private collections:
- Pump Park Collection (PP)
- Brinckmann-Rogge Collection (BR)
- Klevens Sports Archive (KS)
- Sebastian Dobson Collection (SD)