MEIJI JAPAN

in Photographs
Washi Prints from the
Claude Estèbe Collection

CLAUDE ESTÈBE
 MEIJI JAPAN
in Photographs
Washi Prints from the Claude Estèbe Collection

C L AU DE E S T È B E

Catalogue of an exhibition at
Serindia Gallery at the Blue Building
222 East 46th Street, New York City

20 September – 2 November 2018

MATIZ ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN | 1123 BROADWAY, SUITE 707 NEW YORK, NY 10010 | 212.982.4613
 washi prints from the claude estèbe collection

during the meiji period (1868–1912) Japan was already known as “the
land of photography”. Numerous photographs were produced, yet they suffered
significant loss with time. Many considered them much more valuable than
Japanese prints of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As an expert in this field,
Claude Estèbe saw thousands upon thousands of them, and for him they all
have great historical value. Also, as a photographer and an artist, he was deeply
moved by many rare examples that had special subjects or compositions which
he started to collect.

These original prints were often too fragile to be shown and many offered
details deserving proper enlargements. Two years ago, in Arles, France, Claude
met French artisans of Atelier Papetier who were doing hand-made organic washi
(Japanese paper) in the old nagashizuki technique as they were taught in Japan
by two masters (UNESCO intangible cultural heritage). Claude was stunned by
the printing capacity of this material and they started a collaboration that will be
shown here for the first time.

Though washi was not used in the 19th century for photographs, this new
technique revived the charm of the delicate old hand-colored albumen prints.
This exhibition is not a historical panorama of the Meiji period but shares
some “coups de cœur” of Claude Estèbe. More importantly, it introduces some
forgotten Japanese masters of photography like Ueno Hikoma, Uchida Kuichi,
Yokohama Matsusaburō, and Kajima Seibei.

This catalogue was written as an online companion to the exhibition, not as a definitive print publication on the subject.
We expect errors and welcome edits from all readers. Updated versions will be refreshed online periodically.
Version: 19 September, 2018.
 上野彦馬
UENO Hikoma
Portrait of a Samurai, c. 1872
Handmade washi print 50 × 66 cm
Original: albumen print, carte de visite size

Ueno took this splendid portrait of a real samurai in full armour in his
Nagasaki studio. A strategic harbour, Nagasaki was a city ruled directly
by the shoguns but close to the principal rebellious fiefdoms which
were rapidly modernizing. They supported Ueno’s atelier where the
samurais may have their portraits taken. The sitter was most probably
a warrior from the powerful Satsuma fief that patronized his studio.
This kind of armour was not used anymore for warfare but worn on
honorific circumstances.

Ueno Hikoma (上野彦馬, 1838–1904), was one of the best artists of

the first generation of Japanese photographers. He opened his portrait
studio in Nagasaki as soon as 1862 and had a strong clientele both of
locals and foreign patrons. The French officer and writer Pierre Loti
posed in this studio in 1886 in the company of “Madame Chrysanthème”
when he was writing the eponymous novel. A whole chapter of this
book described its photo session.

Ueno’s portrait works were the best among his contemporaries in the
Bakumatsu period (end of Edo). He used an excellent portrait lens, a
Dallmeyer, imported from France at great expense.

Occupied by his flourishing activity as a portraitist, Ueno produced

few genre scenes. He opened nonetheless three studio branches:
Vladivostok in 1890, Shanghai and Hong Kong in 1891.

Photograph reproduced in “Les premiers ateliers de photographie japonais (1859–1872)”,

Etudes Photographiques n°19, Paris, Société Française de Photographie, 2007.
 鹿島 清兵衛
KAJIMA Seibei,
Portrait of Ponta, Geisha of Shinbashi, c. 1895
Handmade washi print 50 × 66 cm
Original: large hand-colored albumen print

This portrait of a young Japanese woman stood out for the elegance of
her pose and the delicate hand-coloring. It was the work of a forgotten
artist, Kajima Seibei (鹿島 清兵衛, 1866–1924). Nothing in this young
woman’s neat, sober stance suggested that she was Ponta, one of the
most celebrated geisha in the Shinbashi district of Tōkyō in the 1890’s.

Kajima Seibei took handsome portraits of Ponta, who was his muse.
Their notorious liaison inspired the famous writer Mori Ogai for his
extravagant short story, “One Hundred Tales” (Hyaku monogatari).
Kajima photographed her in his luxurious studio in Kyōbashi, the
Genrokukan, equipped with a revolving plateau, just as in the kabuki
theatre.

This amateur photographer, adopted son of a rich sake brewer, was

nicknamed shashin daijin, “the prodigal photographer” for his lavish
spending. When Kajima Seibei was finally disinherited by his family
on the basis of his debauched life and the wasting of money caused by
his over-ambitious photographic projects, he was forced to divorce his
wife. Completely broke, he moved to Kyōto where he opened a small
studio in the Maruyama area and married Ponta, who had moved with
him to Kyōto.

Later in life, Kajima burned his left hand during an accident with
a magnesium flash in his studio, lost a thumb and had to give up
photography. He then made a living by playing flute in a Noh theatre.

This photograph was reproduced in Yokohama shashin, edition Yellowkorner, 2014.

 Felice BEATO
Portrait of a Yakunin (Samurai), c. 1866
Handmade washi print 50 × 66 cm
Original: albumen print,
carte de visite size, cropped

A portrait of a yakunin in ceremonial costume, shot by Felice Beato in

Yokohama. These samurais in the Shogun’s service, ensured the safety
of the ports opened to the West after 1859: Yokohama, Hakodate and
Nagasaki. They disappeared at the end of the Edo period with the
imperial restoration of Meiji.

As all the samurais, he wears the typical hairstyle with tonsure and
chonmage style bun and carries two Japanese swords, a long katana and
a short wakizashi. He is clutching a fan in his right hand. He is dressed
in a formal costume called kami-shimo, wearing a kataginu coat with
large padding and pants called hakama.

Felice Beato (1832–1909) arrived in Japan during the summer of 1863

and opened a studio in Yokohama. An internationally-known war
photographer, he quickly produced a huge body of work which he sold
with great business acumen. He kept working for the British army (of
Italian origin, but was granted British citizenship), for whom he had
covered the second opium war in China.

In the troubled times of Bakumatsu period (1853–1868), to venture

outside Yokohama, Beato needed a pass and a yakunin escort.

This photograph was reproduced in Yokohama shashin, edition Yellowkorner, 2014.

 Anonymous
Portrait of a Oiran (Courtesan), c. 1870’s
Handmade washi print 50 × 66 cm
Original: albumen print,
carte de visite size

A strong portrait of an Oiran of Yoshiwara district in Tōkyō. At the top

of the hierarchical pyramid of the karyūkai, the world of flowers and
willows, were tayū and oiran.

These high-ranking courtesans were distinguished from plain

prostitutes (jorō) confined to ordinary brothels. They wrote poetry, set
up luxurious tea ceremonies, danced, and played music. To gain their
favours, it was necessary to spend a considerable amount of money and
to hold banquets. To show their faithfulness, some would not hesitate
to send a phalanx of a finger to their lover.

Oiran were recognizable thanks to the numerous decorative hairpins

adorning their complex hairdo, and by their heavy multi-layered
embroidered kimonos, supplemented with a huge obi tied on the front,
as well as high black-lacquered clogs.

Yoshiwara “the city that never sleeps” played a major part in the strict
Edo society. This was the only place where Samurai, during discrete
visits, would meet rich bourgeois, artists, and courtesans. One would
access it by boat (yatakabune) from the Sumida River or through one
of the numerous canals that crisscrossed Edo. Rich customers would
travel in the company of geishas during these trips on the river.

This photograph was exhibited in Fukuoka’s Asian Art Museum in 2004.

 日下部金兵衛
KUSAKABE Kimbei
“Fujiyama, from Suzukawa, Tokaido”, c. 1880
Handmade washi print 60.5 × 81.5 cm
Original: large hand-colored albumen print

This photograph, by an explicit reference to a station of the Tokaidō

road and the vertical composition of landscape common in Japanese
prints but quite rare in photography is clearly inspired by the aesthetics
of ukiyo-e. But contrary to what has often been said, about Felice
Beato in particular, Japanese photographs are very seldom inspired by
Japanese prints and this one is the exception rather than the rule.

The writing of the original caption, “Fuji-Yama”, was an early but

erroneous transcription of Mount Fuji, indeed spelled Fuji san in
Japanese (富士山).

Kusakabe Kimbei (日下部金兵衛, 1841–1934) opens his studio in

Yokohama busy Benten-dōri street in 1881 and it remains active and
prosperous up until 1913. He apprenticed with Beato and Stillfried and
was responsible for part of the catalogue of Stillfried and Andersen. Up
till then albums had simple western-style bindings in leather. Kimbei
(Kusakabe used his given name as his commercial identity) completed
his albums with superb lacquered covers, ornamented by “japanesque”
scenes — a style which will be adopted by all studios. The smaller
formats are given concertina style bindings and covered in Japanese
cloth.

Kimbei was also the first to systematize the use of numbered marginal
printed captions in his prints, facilitating the choice of prints in a
catalogue of more than one thousand references. The client had the
option of removing the insert by having the lower margin of the thin
albumen prints cut away before having the prints pasted on the pages
of his album.

This photograph was exhibited in Fukuoka’s Asian Art Museum in 2004.

 Anonymous
Panorama of Nara from Sarusawa pond , 1890’s
Handmade washi print 126.5 × 53.5 cm
Original: panoramic hand-colored
gelatino bromide silver print
A classic scenic view of Nara from the Sarusawa pond, facing North-East with on the
left the five-storied pagoda of the Buddhist Kōfuku-ji temple and on the right the South
Octagonal Hall (Nan’endō), of the same temple grounds behind the stone staircase
leading to it. This temple houses a few of the most famous Buddhist sculptures.

Nara was the capital of Japan during the seventh century, under the name Heijō-
kyō since it was founded in 710 by Empress Gemmei until 784 when the capital was
transferred to Heian- kyō (nowadays Kyōto).

The Guimet Museum of Asian Arts in Paris houses a copy of this photograph in its
original size: a print on albumen paper in the standard format of about 20 × 25 cm. This
slightly posterior print was made by another studio with a panoramic cropping cutting
off half of the image, printed on a different paper with gelatino bromide silver process
and a stronger colouring in an aesthetic perceived as more authentically Japanese in
following the trendy style of pictorialist photography and Japonisme at the turn of the
century.

This photograph was reproduced in Yokohama shashin, edition Yellowkorner, 2014.

 Unkown Yokohama shashin studio
Entrance of Suwa shrine, Kōbe, 1890’s
Handmade washi print 81.5 × 60.5 cm
Original: large hand-colored print

A view of the Suwa Shintō shrine, leaning against the Suwa mountain,
in the heights of the harbour of Kōbe, overlooking the new Foreign
settlement.

We note the total absence of vanishing point and perspective. The

different planes merge and only the gaudy coloring can detach the red
torii porch that marks the entrance to the sacred space of the shintō
temple. Barely visible on the left is the balcony of a colonial-style
Western residence newly built.

In the 1880s Western travellers now arrived in pacified and modernized

Japan of the Meiji era “like swarms of locusts” according to Basil Hall
Chamberlain. The rapid increase of tourism led to the opening of
many new studios in Yokohama with fierce competition. The studios
of Yokohama Shashin, literally “the photographs of Yokohama” because
the production and purchase of photographs were concentrated on this
port, all had a rather similar offer: a long series of “views”, either famous
or familiar landscapes and views of Japanese cities and buildings,
and another series of “costumes”, portraits and genre scenes of its
inhabitants.

Many pictures of this studio are well known but his name and location
are still unknown. It could be a photography studio or a reseller from
Yokohama or even Kōbe.

This photograph was exhibited in Geneva’s Momiji gallery in 2011.

 Felice BEATO
“Kamakura — Temple of Hatchiman”
Pagoda, Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū,
Kamakura, c. 1863
Handmade washi print 60.5 × 81.5 cm
Original: large albumen print

This photograph was reproduced as an engraving in Le Japon Illustré,

prepublished in the magazine Le Tour du monde in 1866. This book was
a narrative of the long stay of Swiss Aimé Humbert in Japan.

At the end of 1862, Humbert travelled to Japan with the rank of

minister plenipotentiary of the Swiss Confederation. He stayed there
until he finally signed with the government a treaty of friendship
and commerce on February 6, 1864. Humbert completed his detailed
narrative with his harvest of prints and paintings and “by adding a
selection of photographs taken for the most part under [his] eyes” by
Felice Beato.

A stroke of luck for Beato who was thus able to visit Edo, a capital
accessible only to diplomatic agents. This esoteric pagoda of Hachiman
shrine at Kamakura, since destroyed during the separation of Buddhism
from state Shinto in 1872, was one of numerous prints by Beato among
the engravings of Le Japon Illustré.

Beato, who arrived in Yokohama in the summer of 1863, was one of

the first photojournalists. This English citizen born in Venice, seconded
Robertson in Crimea and accompanied in 1860 the Anglo-French
troops who ransacked the Beijing Summer Palace during the Second
Opium War. He was the best Western photographer in Japan during
the nineteenth century.

This photograph was reproduced in Yokohama shashin, edition Yellowkorner, 2014.

 桑田 正三郎
KUWADA Shōsaburō
Todai-ji Temple, Nara, 1880’s
Handmade washi print 81.5 × 60.5 cm
Original: large albumen print

The Todai-ji (great temple of the East) is a Buddhist temple located in

Nara. The main building, the Daibutsu-den was erected to protect a
monumental meditating Buddha in bronze of 18 meters high and 250
tons. It is the oldest Buddha in Japan of such size, whose construction
dates back to the middle of the 8th century, while Nara was still the
capital of Japan.

The Daibutsu-den was rebuilt for the last time in 1692 after a fire, two-
thirds of its original size but it is still the largest wooden building in the
world. It is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Kuwada Shōsaburō 桑田 正三郎 (1855–1932), who opened his studio

in Kyōto in 1873, was trained by Ichida Sōta after studying chemistry.
He published tourist guides of Kyōto in the form of small albums of
photographs of all the tourist sites (temples, palaces, gardens but also
railway stations and public buildings) including a small descriptive
cartridge in Japanese only. Tourists would use such photo albums to
show his jinrikisha runner to identify the spots they wanted to visit.

This photograph was exhibited in Geneva’s Momiji gallery in 2011.

 横山 松三郎
YOKOYAMA Matsusaburō
Nanzen-ji Temple Gate, Kyōto, 1870’s
Handmade washi print 81.5 × 60.5 cm
Original: large albumen print

This photograph depicts the massive Sanmon entrance gate of Nanzen-

ji Temple (the southern zen temple). This Buddhist temple, located
at the base of Kyōto’s Higashiyama mountains, is one of the most
important Zen temples in all of Japan, from the Rinzai sect. Nanzen-ji
was founded in the mid 13th century by the Emperor Kameyama but
its buildings were all destroyed during the wars of the late Muromachi
Period (1333–1573). The gate was constructed in 1628 by the Tokugawa
clan for soldiers who died in the siege of Osaka Castle in 1615.

When one stares at the Sanmon gate and discovers the tiny character
inside, it is difficult not to think about the opening of Akira Kurosawa
1950 masterpiece movie, Rashōmon, which begins under the long
gone Rashōmon gate of Kyōto inspired by a short story by Akutagawa
Ryūnosuke.

Yokoyama Matsusaburō (横山松三郎, 1838–1884) was a pioneering

Japanese photographer, artist, lithographer and teacher. He started to
learn western painting in Hakodate and moved later to Yokohama and
Tokyo where he opened a studio in 1868.

This year, he met Ninagawa Noritane, an official in the Meiji

government, who commissioned him to photograph Edo Castle, before
its imminent reconstruction, and the Imperial treasures housed in the
Shōsō-in of Nara. In addition to his landscapes and portraits, Yokoyama
is noted for his self-portraits, and his works also include paintings and
shashin abura-e, a kind of “photographic oil-paintings” that he created.

This photograph was exhibited in Geneva’s Momiji gallery in 2011.

 玉村 康三郎
TAMAMURA Kōzaburō
Rokkakudō temple, Kyōto, c. 1877
Handmade washi print 81.5 × 60.5 cm
Original: large albumen print

The Chōhō-ji Buddhist Temple, nicknamed Rokkaku-dō for its

unique hexagonal form, is one of the oldest in Kyōto. It is still very
popular today, being related to the birth of ikebana, the art of flower
arrangement, from the Muromachi era.

Here, the clear space around the temple allows to fully appreciate the
complex architecture, but today it is located in the heart of the city
near Karasuma-Oike crossing and is completely embedded in a dense
urban fabric.

Rokkaku-dō was allegedly founded by Prince Shōtoku in the early

Heian period and played an important role in the development of Jōdo
Shinshū, the “True School of the Pure Land”. Founded by Shinran,
a former Tendai monk, it is still one of the most popular currents of
Japanese Buddhism. Emile Guimet, during his trip to Japan, spoke at
length with the priests of this school during a meeting on October 26,
1876 in the cloud pavilion of Nishi Hongan-ji of Kyōto.

In the 1880s in Yokohama, Tamamura Kōzaburō (玉村 康三郎, 1856–

1923?) and Kusakabe Kimbei ran the two largest studios in Yokohama
Shashin. Josef Kořenský (1847–1938), a Czech writer-traveller, described
the business like this in 1893:

“Yokohama is the best place to purchase photographs of Japanese

subjects. The photography studios run by Ogawa, Suzuki, Kimbei, and
Tamamura cannot fully cope with the overwhelming amount of orders
from foreign tourists.”
 Felice BEATO
“Bettō or Groom, tatooed à la mode”, c. 1864.
Handmade washi print 51.5 × 56.5 cm
Original: hand-colored albumen print,
carte de visite size, cropped

These bettō (horse grooms) are fully tattooed in the irezumi style,
characterized by the size of the pattern and the large areas of color,
mostly blue and red. The motifs are often inspired by ukiyo-e prints
by Yoshitoshi and Kuniyoshi and the Kabuki world. Here the main
motifs seem to be of Kabuki actors, yet we also note the pattern on
the left sitter includes a koi carp, representing strength and courage.
These tattoos are real but they have been redrawn to better discern or
embellish them.

Tattoos were restricted to several marginal occupations like bettō or

firemen harboring apotropaic dragons to protect themselves from fire.
The Japanese government, concerned that the backward image this
kind might propagate internationally, issued an edict in 1871 addressing
moral probity, obligating the citizenry and the jin to get dressed,
censuring shunga and erotic photography and forbidding the practice
of tattooing. The ban on tattoos was only lifted after 1945.

Later, in Meiji era, bettō worked mainly as jinrikisha (rickshaw) runner.

In the summer, from his seat, the traveller could detail the tattooed
backs of their bare back runners, “real works of art of various colors that
we have time to contemplate at leisure” (Felix Régamey).

These kind of small portraits in carte de visite card size (6 × 9 cm) were
made by Felice Beato before Yokohama’s big fire of 1866, during which
he lost all the negatives plates from his first Japanese series and all of his
China photographs. They are very seldom found today.

This photograph was exhibited in Fukuoka’s Asian Art Museum in 2004.

A.

B.
C.

小川 一真
OGAWA Kazumasa
Flowers of Japan, c. 1895

A.  Botan (Peony — paeonia arborea), c. 1895

Handmade washi print 51.5 × 56.5 cm
Original: large color collotype

B.  Tsubaki (camellia japonica), c. 1895

Handmade washi print 51.5 × 56.5 cm
Original: large color collotype

C.  Tsutsuji (Azalea — rhododendron indicum), c. 1895

Handmade washi print 51.5 × 56.5 cm
Original: large color collotype
D.

E.
 小川 一真
OGAWA Kazumasa
Flowers of Japan, c. 1895

D.  Kanoko-yuri (Lily-lilium speciosum), c. 1895

Handmade washi print 51.5 × 56.5 cm
Original: large color collotype, cropped

E.  Tatsu-nami kiku (“Standing Wave” style Chrysanthemum), c. 1895

Handmade washi print 51.5 × 56.5 cm
Original: large color collotype, cropped

For his series of flowers of Japan, Ogawa, rather than diffusing them in hand colored
albumen prints decided to innovate and used a new mechanical printing process,
collotype to get most vivid and more stable colors. In 1891, the Journal of the
Photographic Society of India, stated about some of this photographs that “for softness
and delicacy these pictures are absolutely unsurpassable”. According Clark Worswick,
“his studies of flowers in works like The Lilies of Japan anticipated work done a decade
later in America by the Photo-Secession group”. Each of the ten folio volumes of the
Mikado edition of Japan: Described and Illustrated by the Japanese, published in Boston
by J.-B. Millet Company Boston in 1897 had a frontispiece full-page color collotype of
flower made by Ogawa in his Tōkyō studio.

Ogawa Kazumasa (小川 一真, 1860–1929), was the first to import and distribute
the collotype printing process in Japan. He was an emblematic figure of the second
generation of Japanese photographers, after the pioneers of the troubled end of the
shogunate, like Ueno Hikoma.

In 1882 he moved to the United States. In Boston, at the Albert Type Company, he was
introduced to the latest printing processes. He returned to Tōkyō in 1885 where he
opened a prestigious photo studio. In 1888, at the request of the State, he photographed
temples and works of art in Kyōto and Nara.

In 1889, he opened the first collotype workshop in Japan, Ogawa shashin Seihanjo, and
presented the process at the Photographic Society of Japan meeting on 27 September.
He printed the Kokka magazine that had just been founded. This monthly publication,
both luxurious and of high scientific standing, presented the arts of Japan. It was part
of a movement supported by personalities such as Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904), Ernest
Fenollosa (1853–1908) and Okakura Tenshin (1862-1913), who emphasized the revival of
traditional cultural values.

Some of these prints were reproduced in “La collotypie et le Japon”, in Emakimono et Tapisserie de Bayeux —
Dessins animés du Moyen Age, Catalogue d’exposition, Bayeux, Musée de la tapisserie de Bayeux, 2011.
 Dr. Carl Heinrich STRATZ
“Reclining Japanese”, 1892–1898
Handmade washi print 86.5 × 60.5 cm
Original: Aristotype mounted on cardboard

Although erotic photographs are attested in Japan as early as 1865, they

are rare and the compositions are often clumsy. In fact, there is more
masculine nudity — with tattooed bettō — than feminine one to be
found in travellers albums made by native or foreign photographers.
Bathing scenes are not only a pretext to display the female nude but
indeed witness to a custom which stirred the curiosity of travellers:
common folks sometimes bathed naked in public, installing a tub before
the house. This provoked plenty of speculation, as to whether this candid
nudity was a sign of Edenic purity or rather of common debauchery.
So academic nude is never found in souvenir photography and this
photograph is quite unusual.

The only occurrence of this rare photograph is a reproduction in a German

Anthropology book of 1902 with the caption “Liegende Japanerin”. This
book, Die Körperformen in Kunst and Leben der Japaner (The Body Forms in
Art and the Life of the Japanese] was written by a German gynaecologist
of Russian ascendancy, Carl Heinrich Stratz (1858–1924). In this work,
Stratz addressed both the Japanese peculiarities of body shape as well as
the concept of beauty and the aesthetics of the naked body in Japanese
art.

He used diverse geisha portraits, like several works by Kusakabe Kimbei,

in this book. Stratz also added photographs he took during his visits to
Japan when he travelled around the world between 1892 and 1898. It was
very likely that this nude had been taken by the Dr. Stratz himself.

This original photograph came from Stratz’s own collection. We can see
blue lines of ink made on the background to give more contrast before
the engraving process. This aristotype, a special paper mostly used by
amateur photographers, was mounted on a thick cardboard with lines
delimiting the book’s reproduction cropping in the margins.

This photograph was reproduced in Yokohama shashin, edition Yellowkorner, 2014.

 Unkown Yokohama shashin studio
“Dancing”, 1890’s
Handmade washi print 60.5 × 81.5 cm
Original: large hand-colored albumen print

This unusual photograph of a still non-attributed Japanese souvenir

photography studio shows an awkward group a female musicians
acting like rock stars in front of a nice bucolic background of western
inspiration. This posed photo — because of the long shooting time —
mimics a snapshot which leads to a curious mixture of spontaneity and
stiffness.

The woman on the left is about to smash her shamisen (Japanese banjo)
on the tatami mats in a gesture anticipating the future pose of the first
guitar-smashing rock artist, Pete Townshend of The Who in 1964. On
the right another woman present the ivory plectrum of the shamisen
as an offering in a Shinto shrine, next to her, a geisha is playing with
an umbrella and the last one is squeezing a tenugui in a dramatic pose.
The title of the photograph is just “Dancing” and this composition is
obviously parodist, in the style of a visual pun called mitate.

A mitate, was a refined visual rebus or parody characteristic of the floating

world culture of the Edo period — a figure often used in ukiyo-e prints,
like geisha imitating monks or samurais. The surprising part here is that
this print was made by a studio of Yokohama shashin style, dedicated
to the western visitors market. But it was notorious at that time that
travellers could not stand Japanese music, perceived by many visitors as
mere noise, hence this upside-down humoristic ensemble.

Westerners had been slow to appreciate the sound of shamisen. Visiting

Japan in 1931 Henri Michaux still compared the music of geishas to “a
kind of sour and sparkling water that stings without comfort”.
 内田 九一
UCHIDA Kuichi
Pleasure boat (yakatabune) on the Sumida river, c. 1871
Handmade washi print 81.5 × 60.5 cm
Original: large slightly hand-colored albumen print

A pleasure boat (yakatabune) on the Sumida river near Mukōjima taken

by Uchida. This large albumen paper is almost monochrome with a
single touch of color added: the kimono of one of the geishas sitting on
the roof of the boat, was slightly tinted in mauve. An annotated print of
this photograph, brought back by Charles Longfellow from his first trip
to Japan, allows us to locate the scene. It was taken near the Yūmeirō tea
house whose residents we see here. The second figure from the left is
Yūmeirō’s mama-san, Okiku, nicknamed Chocho (butterfly) by Charles
Longfellow himself. She was Longfellow’s lover during his stay in Japan.
On her left we see Takihachi and next, sitting in seiza on the roof with
another geisha, Miakuchi. We also see three men, Kiosuki, Cho at the bar
and a customer installed in the boat.

Because of the low sensitivity of the negative plate, it was not technically
possible to photograph a boat floating on the water without blurring.
The solution found here was witty. The boat was actually beached on
a shallow part of the river. The long exposure produced eerie ghostly
shadows on the mirroring surface of the water.

Uchida Kuichi (内田 九一, 1844–1875), after Dutch studies (rangaku)

in Nagasaki, opened a studio in Kobe in 1865. In 1868, he took many
photographs of soldiers of the imperial army during the last part of
the civil war. He then sheltered in Yokohama and opened a first studio
there in Bashamichi. He founded a studio in the new capital, Tokyo, in
1869, on the second floor of a brick building in the western style, to take
advantage of the light entering through a glazed portion of the roof.
He received orders to take photographs of Edo Castle and the official
portraits of Emperor Meiji. Cultivating a dandy look, close to Kabuki
circles and geishas, his studio was the most trendy of the capital but he
died suddenly February 17, 1875, at the age of only 32 years.

Photograph reproduced in “Les premiers ateliers de photographie japonais (1859-1872)”,

Etudes Photographiques n°19, Paris, Société Française de Photographie, 2007.
 about claude estèbe

CLAUDE ESTÈBE is a French photographer and scholar in Japanese

visual studies with a background of engineer in computer science. He is a
former resident of Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto.

exhibitions
2018 Sweet Waste II (with Tawan Wattuya) / Curator : Myrtille Tibayrenc
Barbar Fetish Club / Toot Yung Art Center, Bangkok
2017 Lost in the Flesh, Galeries Night / Black Pagoda / Toot Yung, Bangkok
2015 H Dolls, DecabarZ, Tokyo
2015 Pachimon / Alliance Française / Toot Yung, Bangkok
2014 Radium Girls, festival KG+ / Kyotographie, Anewal Gallery, Kyoto
2013 Radium Girls, Toot Yung Art Center, Bangkok
2012 Choking Hazard, Toot Yung Art Center, Bangkok
2011 Tukata, Post Industrial Venus, Toot Yung Art Center, Bangkok
2011 Au coeur des saisons — Susan Buirge et Matoma à Institut Franco-Japonais de
Tokyo / Gallery 21, Tokyo.
2010 Uchimata, Institut Franco-Japonais de Tokyo.
2008 Japanese Legs, Manit’s Kathmandu Photo Gallery, Bangkok

curatorial
2017 Theater of Love – Guimet Museum Collection, Kyotographie Festival, Toraya
gallery, Kyoto.
2017 Nobuyoshi Araki “Sentimental Journey” 1971/2015, Galerie La Hune, Paris.
2015 Last Samurais, First Photographs — Guimet Museum Collection, Kyotographie
Festival, Toraya gallery, Kyoto.
2013 The Christian Polak Collection, Kyotographie Festival, Toraya gallery, Kyoto.
2008 First portraits in Siam (1850–1860), The Queen’s Gallery, Bangkok.
2004 Visions of Meiji Japan, Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka.

distinctions
2007 Fellowship Louis Roederer at French National Library.
2006 Doctor in japanese studies (visual culture) at INALCO, Paris.
2004 Fellowship Lavoisier at Teikyo University, Tokyo.
2000 Fellow at Villa Kujoyama artist residence in Kyoto.
washi prints from the claude estèbe collection
上野彦馬
UENO Hikoma
Portrait of a Samurai, c. 1872
Handmade washi print 50 × 66 cm
1.  Original: albumen print, carte de visite size

鹿島 清兵衛
KAJIMA Seibei,
Portrait of Ponta, Geisha of Shinbashi, c. 1895
Handmade washi print 50 × 66 cm
2.  Original: large hand-colored albumen print

Felice BEATO
Portrait of a Yakunin (Samurai), c. 1866
Handmade washi print 50 × 66 cm
Original: albumen print,
3.  carte de visite size, cropped

Anonymous
Portrait of a Oiran (Courtesan), c. 1870’s
Handmade washi print 50 × 66 cm
Original: albumen print,
4.  carte de visite size
日下部金兵衛
KUSAKABE Kimbei
Fujiyama, from Suzukawa, Tokaidō, c. 1880
Handmade washi print 60.5 × 81.5 cm
5.  Original: large hand-colored albumen print
Anonymous
6.  Panorama of Nara from Sarusawa pond , 1890’s
Handmade washi print 126.5 × 53.5 cm
Original: panoramic hand-colored
gelatino bromide silver print

7.  Unkown Yokohama shashin studio

Entrance of Suwa shrine, Kōbe, 1890’s
Handmade washi print 81.5 × 60.5 cm
Original: large hand-colored print
 Felice BEATO
“Kamakura — Temple of Hatchiman”
Pagoda, Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū,
Kamakura, c. 1863
Handmade washi print 60.5 × 81.5 cm
8.  Original: large albumen print

桑田 正三郎
KUWADA Shōsaburō
Todai-ji Temple, Nara, 1880’s
Handmade washi print 81.5 × 60.5 cm
9. 
Original: large albumen print

横山 松三郎
YOKOYAMA Matsusaburō
Nanzen-ji Temple Gate, Kyōto, 1870’s
Handmade washi print 81.5 × 60.5 cm
10. 
Original: large albumen print

玉村 康三郎
TAMAMURA Kōzaburō
Rokkakudō temple, Kyōto, c. 1877
11.  Handmade washi print 81.5 × 60.5 cm
Original: large albumen print

Felice BEATO
“Betto or Groom, tatooed à la mode”, c. 1864.
Handmade washi print 51.5 × 56.5 cm
Original: hand-colored albumen print,
12.  carte de visite size, cropped

小川 一真
OGAWA Kazumasa
Flowers of Japan, c. 1895
A.  Botan (Peony — paeonia arborea), c. 1895
13.  Handmade washi print 51.5 × 56.5 cm
Original: large color collotype

B.  Tsubaki (camellia japonica), c. 1895

Handmade washi print 51.5 × 56.5 cm
Original: large color collotype
14. 
 C.  Tsutsuji (Azalea — rhododendron indicum), c. 1895
Handmade washi print 51.5 × 56.5 cm
Original: large color collotype
15. 

D.  Kanoko-yuri (Lily-lilium speciosum), c. 1895

Handmade washi print 51.5 × 56.5 cm
Original: large color collotype, cropped
16. 

E.  Tatsu-nami kiku

(“Standing Wave” style Chrysanthemum), c. 1895
Handmade washi print 51.5 × 56.5 cm
Original: large color collotype, cropped
17. 

Dr. Carl Heinrich STRATZ

“Reclining Japanese”, 1892–1898
Handmade washi print 86.5 × 60.5 cm
18.  Original: Aristotype mounted on cardboard

Unkown Yokohama shashin studio

“Dancing”, 1890’s
Handmade washi print 60.5 × 81.5 cm
Original: large hand-colored albumen print
19. 

内田 九一
UCHIDA Kuichi
Pleasure boat (yakatabune)
on the Sumida river, c. 1871
20.  Handmade washi print 81.5 × 60.5 cm
Original: large slightly hand-colored albumen print

all photographic prints on washi paper produced in arles, france

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steven dupler • shane suvikapakornkul
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serindia gallery at the blue building
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