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Japan on a Glass Plate: The Adventure of Photography in Yokohama and Beyond

Between the twilight years of the Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1867) and the end of the Meiji Era (1868–1912) that followed it, photography offered a unique insight into the rapid transformation of Japan from an isolated, feudal society to a modern, industrialised state. In the four decades that followed the opening of the country in 1853, the camera evolved from an imported novelty into a familiar witness of daily life.

Operating from the Treaty Ports of Yokohama and elsewhere, early practitioners of photography plied an often precarious trade in images of Japan and laid the foundations of what would soon become a highly competitive industry with a global reach. Whether cherished as souvenirs of an exotic land of fond imagination or curated as visual documents of a fast-changing society, these images by foreign and Japanese photographers, often packaged in exquisitely produced albums, enjoyed a wide circulation abroad and played an important role in influencing perceptions of Japan in the West well into the early twentieth century.

Drawing from an extensive private collection assembled over many years, this book presents a unique selection of nineteenth-century photographs of Japan, many of which are published here for the first time.

Japan on a Glass Plate: The Adventure of Photography in Yokohama and Beyond, 1853-1912, by Sebastian Dobson, Published by Ludion, 2023

 

About the contributors

Sebastian Dobson

Sebastian Dobson is an independent scholar and photographic dealer based in the United Kingdom. His main research interest is the early history of photography in East Asia in general, and Japan in particular, and his publications include entries in The Oxford Companion to the Photograph, catalogue essays for exhibitions hosted by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Peranakan Museum, Singapore, and Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, as well as contributions to numerous books and journals. His most recent publications include a monograph on the Japanese pioneer photographer Shimooka Renjō.