Spotlight
Other Notable Acquisitions

This is Part 2 of two articles about acquisitions Old Photos of Japan has made the past year and a half.

As I mentioned in Part 1, what distinguishes Old Photos of Japan from other sites is that I actually collect and conserve the original prints introduced in the articles for future generations.

In Part 1 I thanked the supporters of Old Photos of Japan and introduced some photographs that I have been able to acquire because of this support.

Today, I would like to introduce a few other acquisitions that deserve attention:

This powerful illustration is by famous Japanese artist Kunisuke Hashimoto (橋本邦助, 1884–1953). People are reading the newspaper with the latest news about the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905).

Hashimoto made a beautiful series of postcards about the Russo-Japanese War that I have been trying to find for many years. This card was especially on my wishlist. I have been outbid repeatedly on Hashimoto cards. This time I got lucky.

This work shows much about daily life in Japan in the early 1900s:

The fashionable Western clothes the men of the new Japanese middle class wear, the women in kimono and traditional hairstyles, the modern electric streetcar, the newspaper hawker in traditional Japanese clothes suggesting a lower class status, the importance of the newly created Japanese nation-state as expressed by the interest in the latest news about the war.

Meanwhile, Hashimoto’s art predicts the popular art forms we are familiar with today, but which were new and revolutionary at the time.

The attitudes expressed in this card would eventually lead to the extreme nationalism of the Pacific War… An important work in three realms: anthropology, history, and art.

This is a Meiji Period albumen print of the Aikawa Gold and Silver Mine (相川金銀山, Aikawa kinginzan) on Sadoshima. From the 16th century to the end of the 20th century it was Japan’s largest gold producer. By 1940 it produced 1500 kilograms of gold and 25 tons of silver annually.

Mining operations stopped in 1989 and in 2010 it was inscribed on Japan’s World Heritage Tentative List.

I believe that this is an extremely rare image. I have not yet found another print. There were other rare prints of the same location offered by the dealer, but unfortunately my budget did not allow me to bid on them…

I also acquired 29 postcards of leading geisha and celebrities photographed in the first two decades of the 1900s by the trailblazing Banshudo studio in Tokyo. It was among the first studios to use blank backgrounds and pose models as individual women with a personality instead of representing a stereotype.

Once famous, Banshudo has been almost completely forgotten. I am reconstructing its body of work and history. It is a long and hard struggle, but thoroughly fascinating.

These cards are known as Bijin Ehagaki (美人絵葉書, beauty postcards). Initially, the models were popular geisha, even the women wearing bathing suits. Later, actresses became models and the postcards morphed into what are today known as bromides. These are simple photographic portraits of celebrities sold at specialty stores.

One of the most famous bromide stores is Marubell, established in Tokyo’s Asakusa in 1921. Earlier this year I found (and purchased) an early envelope of this company containing a Banshudo Studio Bijin Ehagaki. This is an amazing find, tying Banshudo (also spelled Banshiudo) even closer to the birth of bromides.

Kamishibai is a simple form of street theater for children. But during the Second World War, sets were also published to inform civilians about war preparations.

I managed to purchase two perfectly preserved sets of 24 plates each about civil air defense. Both were published in 1943, at the height of the Pacific War. I hope to introduce them as soon as I can make time to scan and translate the (long) texts.

These are two war-related ukiyoe woodblock prints by Sengai Igawa (井川洗厓, 1876–1961). The left image published in 1937 shows a young Japanese mother carrying a child collecting stitches for a senninbari at a temple.

A senninbari was a long strip of white cloth of about a meter long embroidered by strangers and acquaintances with a thousand knotted stitches that looked like little balls. Women gave the senninbari to the men in their life to protect them on the battle field. This image was used in Off to War.

The right image, from 1938, shows housewives fighting a fire. In 1945 they learned that this was useless against the massive American area bombardments, not to mention the nuclear bombs.

An unusual acquisition are these 55 issues of Japan’s first business magazine, Jitsugyo no Nihon (実業之日本), covering the period between 1897 (Meiji 30) and 1910 (Meiji 43). Japanese industrialist Eiichi Shibusawa (渋沢 栄一, 1840–1931), known as the “father of Japanese capitalism”, was a regular contributor.

Surviving copies of this magazine are rare and researchers say that this complicates study of the Meiji economy. I will see how I can make them more easily available.

Method to the Madness

Seen individually my purchases often appear arbitrary and random. But look at my articles and one can see that each image has a clear and crucial purpose.

Each purchase helps me tell a particular story of everyday life in old Japan, or to reconstruct an exceptional body of work. Each image fits into a clear vision of what this collection aims to accomplish.

I spend many hours a week to find these images. Often I view several thousand images a day. Besides fitting into the collection’s mission, they must be in excellent condition. If possible, without damage and foxing (the brown spots you can see on the magazines above). In spite of this, I generally still have to do a significant amount of digital restoration after scanning.

Weak Yen

A brief note on my decreased purchasing power. The yen is weak these days. When I purchase something at the same dollar or euro price as a few years ago it is about 40 percent more expensive in yen… So I currently mostly purchase inside Japan.

Hopefully, I can soon purchase again from the foreign dealers I have worked with over the past sixteen years.

Please Support!

If you are not a supporter yet, but would like to help with the mission to preserve and research Japan’s visual heritage of everyday life, you can donate here. Please only do so if you can afford it.

Sharing the site, specific articles, or the newsletter also helps.

To keep going, Old Photos of Japan needs a few hundred monthly supporters (now there are five…). Please help me get there!

Thank you very much,

Kjeld Duits
Your history friend in Tokyo

This is the second of two articles about new acquisitions. Read Part 1.