A print from the series "Tokyo Pleasures" depicting the fashionable activity of having one's photograph taken — a practice that was both a novelty of Meiji modernization and a significant social event, since portrait photography was expensive, formal, and required special preparation. The introduction of photography to Japan in the 1850s and its rapid spread through the Meiji era made the photographic studio a new kind of social space, and prints depicting the photographic experience documented this transformation of how Japanese people created and preserved their own images.
Meiji period, dated October 10, 1896
Woodblock print in "ōban" format; ink and color on paper
Woodblock print
Woodblock print
Woodblock print
Woodblock print
1928
Color lithograph
1930
Color lithograph
1948
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Tokyo Pleasures: Photographs was created by Toyohara Chikanobu (豊原周延).
Tokyo Pleasures: Photographs depicts urban scenes, bijin-ga, and daily life, set at Tokyo.