Interprète de la légation Austro-Hongroise
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative with applied color
Dimensions
23.7 x 19.2 cm (9 5/16 x 7 9/16 in.)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Museum Purchase, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.505.1 (3a)
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the 1870s, Austrian photographer Raimund von Stillfried captured *Interprète de la légation Austro-Hongroise*, a striking portrait of an interpreter attached to the Austro-Hungarian legation. Likely taken in Japan, where Stillfried established a renowned studio in Yokohama during the Meiji era, this image reflects the cultural exchanges sparked by Japan's opening to the West after centuries of isolation. The subject, dressed in formal attire blending Eastern and Western influences, embodies the diplomatic bridges being forged amid rapid modernization and foreign diplomacy. Printed as an al...
About the Artist
Raimund von Stillfried · 1839–1911
Raimund von Stillfried (1839–1911) was an Austrian photographer who became one of the foremost Western practitioners of photography in Japan during the Meiji era. Born Baron Raimund von Stillfried-Ratenicz in Bohemia into an aristocratic family, he pursued a military career before discovering photography and making his way to East Asia in the early 1870s. He settled in Yokohama — then the principa...