Souvenirs from Japan. Japanese photography at the turn of the century.

[from the Introduction: ]
In December 1989 the Schilling collection of nineteenth-century Japanese photography was acquired by the Dutch bookstore Ukiyo-e Books in Leiden from Lempertz Auction house in Cologne, Germany.
When I initially viewed these works with the owners, we were all struck by their exceptional quality, both in the pristine condition and m the diverse imagery. Almost immediately the idea of a publication was born.
During my survey of the existing literature in Western language sources dealing with Japanese tourist photography of the late nineteenth century, I was convinced of the need to devote time on what appeared to be a relatively undocumented area. Earlier writers had concentrated only on well-known Western photographers, Felice Beato and Baron von Stillfried, who worked in Japan a number of years. Little attention was paid to the indigenous industry of tourist photography which flourished from c. 1880. It has only been in the last decade that serious interest in the field increased among Japanese scholars. In this book it has been my aim to integrate both Japanese and Western sources and to address some of the relevant questions which have been left unanswered in Western literature. My own training as an anthropologist explains the emphasis of the text on the socio-cultural meaning of the Schilling photographs, although their artistic and historic value no doubt warrants further indepth treatment by art historians and historians alike. Following a brief introduction concerning the provenance of the Schilling collection, I have attempted to outline the cultural and historical setting within which Japanese photography developed in the second half of the nineteenth century. Then I focus upon photography as a technique and as a profession; a description of the early days of photography in Japan serves as an introduction to various aspects of Japanese souvenir photography, the latter being particularly germane to the collection presented in this publication.
Margarita Winkel, Leiden, June 1991
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Table of Contents
1. The Schilling Collection of 19th-century Japanese Photography ;
2. The setting: Nineteenth-century Japan ;
3. The image of Japan in the West ;
4. Early photographic techniques and their introduction to Japan ;
5. Souvenir photography The problems of attribution ;
6. Photography and Japanese woodblock print tradition ;
7. The photographs ;
8. Bibliography.