[Japanese Women in Traditional Dress]

Art Historical Context

In the 1870s, during Japan's transformative Meiji era, photographer Suzuki Shin'ichi captured elegance of everyday life in works like *Japanese Women in Traditional Dress This albumen silver print a glass negative, measuring 25.2 x 20 cm, exemplifies early photography's fusion of Western technology and local artistry. Shin'ichi, in Yokohama's bustling studio scene, produced images for both domestic audiences and international tourists, preserving vanishing traditions amid rapid modernization. The photograph's applied color—hand-painted directly onto the print—elevates it beyond mere documenta...

About the Artist

Suzuki Shin'ichi · 1835–1919

Suzuki Shin'ichi (1835–1919) was a Japanese photographer who worked during a period of extraordinary transformation in both Japanese society and the history of the photographic medium. Active during the Meiji era, when Japan was engaged in a sweeping process of modernization and opening to the world, Suzuki belonged to the generation of early Japanese photographers who helped define what photograp...