Professional Singers
1870s
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative with applied color
Dimensions
25.1 x 20.1 cm (9 7/8 x 7 15/16 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 (11b)
Tags
Art Historical Context
"Professional Singers," a hand-colored albumen silver print a glass negative by Suzuki Shin'ichi dates to the 1870s and measures 25.1 x 20.1 cm. This intimate portrait captures professional female singers in poised elegance, their vibrant attire and expressive features brought to life through meticulously applied color. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Gilman Collection, it exemplifies early Japanese photography's fusion of Western technology and traditional artistry. Suzuki, a pioneering photographer based in Yokohama—a bustling treaty port during Japan's Meiji era (1868–1912)—embr...
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...