[Geisha with Attendant]

Yokoyama Matsusaburō

1860s · Ambrotype · Photographs

When Japan opened its ports to the West in the 1850s, photography—called shashin, literally, a copy of truth—soon became widely available. High-end professional salons and open-air studios operated by itinerant practitioners offered portraits at every price range. While the popularity of ambrotypes, a positive photograph on glass, was short-lived in the United States, Japanese ambrotypes were in demand from the early 1870s until the end of the nineteenth century. These two ambrotype portraits depict a dreamy-eyed, fourteen-year-old student and a barefoot geisha with her attendant. Housed in poetry-inscribed kiri-wood boxes, they provide an intimate and rare glimpse of how modern Japanese society represented itself.

Artist

Yokoyama Matsusaburō

Date

1860s

Medium

Ambrotype

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Funds from various donors, 2004