SIGHTS AND SCENES IN FAIR JAPAN

Tokyo: [Imperial Government Railways], N.D., circa 1910. With 2 maps and 50 fine color-tinted collotype photographic plates of Japanese scenes and attractions by Japan’s leading contemporary photographer, they are printed on one side only of heavy stock plates. Each with descriptive captions below in English. Oblong, 270 x 370 mm., bound in modified Japanese-style in silk-covered board pictorially decorated by embroidery in colours on both covers, the upper featuring Mt. Fuji, bound together with purple ribbon at the spine, fine decorated silk-backed endpapers. A lovely copy with only occasional mild spotting or mellowing. A beautiful early Japanese tourism book produced for English speaking visitors. Ogawa (1860-1929) was a leading photographer of the period, as well as printer and publisher. He was a pioneer in photomechanical printing and photography in the Meiji era. In 1882, he moved to Boston where he took courses in portrait photography and the dry plate process. He also studied collotype printing in Albert Type Company. Returning to Japan in 1882, he opened the first photography studio in Tokyo.
The work was reprinted throughout much of the 1910s in the more common formats with either all or most of the plates in black and white and in more traditionally Western styles of bindings. This is a scarce and beautiful collection.