1895 personal photograph album - Nikko and environs

Quarto format (25 x 24 cm) photograph album with thick tortoiseshell pattern covers and leather spine binding. Spine has four raised bands and the lettering ‘Nikko et Environs’ and ‘1895’ in gold. Marbled endpapers, binding tight. Spine rubbed, at top and bottom, wear to cover edges and corners slightly bumped.

Contains 42 black and white photographs (13 x 9 cm) glued one to a page on stiff grey/green card. Each has a neat contemporary calligraphy description in black ink, in French.

Some photographs are partly faded, although it is possible that some may be over-exposed photographs. 

The card pages are browned close to the edges, and there is some light foxing to a few pages, but otherwise in good condition overall. Some minor repairs to the page mounts.

Nikko is an important city in Japanese culture as it contains famous onsen and the mausoleum of the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, the Tosho-gu Shinto Shrine. The shrine was originally built in 1617 during the early Edo period by Hidetada as a memorial to his father Ieyasu. During the Edo period stately processions would take place between Edo (Modern day Tokyo) and Nikko in memory of Ieyasu. the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate who ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji restoration in 1868. He is remembered as a “great Unifier” of Japan, although the Edo period would be characterized by a strict and formal society, largely closed off to the outside world.

These apparently private photographs from the Meiji era show many of the famous shrines, temples of the Nikko area, including the buildings associated with the famous 17th century Tokugawa Shogun Ieyasu. and his grandson Iemitsu. Also depicted are famous bridges, gorges and waterfalls. This album is an early photographic record of some of Japan’s most popular locations visited by tourists today.