Skip to content
Home
Favourites
0
Advanced search
Shopping cart
0
Register
Log in
Images of Edinburgh
Browse map
Area A - Z
Browse by date
Exhibitions
Current exhibition
All exhibitions
Collections
About the collections
Browse by theme
Subject A - Z
The image library for the collections of Edinburgh Libraries and Museums and Galleries
Images of Edinburgh
Browse map
Area A - Z
Browse by date
Exhibitions
Current exhibition
All exhibitions
Collections
About the collections
Browse by theme
Subject A - Z
Subject matches "Japan" or its children
Back to search results
A Japanese fruit vendor
von Stillfried-Ratenicz, Franz, 1881, Photograph
Item
of 396
A Japanese fruit vendor
A Japanese fruit vendor
Add to favourites
Share
Item record
About this image
Related
Location
Category
Library Item
Item no
15141
Title
A Japanese fruit vendor
Description
A Japanese fruit seller carries two large 'okekago' woven baskets on the ends of a balancing bamboo pole. On top of the front container is a chopped up 'suika' or watermelon and in the basket at the back are more watermelons and apples or persimmons.
The vendor is wearing straw sandals and a short half coat with white patterns on a blue background, tied at the waist with a belt. His hair is worn up in a 'chonmage' or topknot.
The photograph was taken in an outdoor setting, in front of a screen that the photographer used to hide the building in the background.
The vendor and his fruits have been hand-painted precisely and with great care. However, the rest of the picture was left in black and white.
Artist / maker
von Stillfried-Ratenicz, Franz
Date
1881
Size
24 x 19.5 cm
Type
Photograph
Location
Art and Design Library
This item is part of a collection of prints from the studio of Baron Franz von Stillfried-Ratenicz, an Austrian photographer practising in Japan in the late 1870's. Von Stillfried ran a studio in Yokohama at the same time as his brother Raimund, who was also known as 'Baron Stillfried'. This caused a great deal of confusion with the local residents and visitors to Japan in the Meiji Period, and with art historians today.
This album, which dates from 1879-83, comprises 67 separate mounted prints presented in a lacquerware box. Albums of this kind were popular among foreign tourists, who frequently selected the individual prints they wished to include from the studio's collection. Many of these albumen prints were hand tinted. This was a laborious process for which von Stillfried employed, at the height of his success, a substantial number of Japanese workers.
Street vendors like the one in this picture were very common in Japanese streets in the Meiji Era. These peddlers would sell anything: fruits, vegetables, drinks, woven baskets, furniture, etc. They had temporary stalls on the busy city streets and around temples. They also went from house to house to sell their goods and walked huge distances. Because of the harsh conditions in which they had to work, being a peddler was one of the most difficult job in Meiji Japan.
The
University of Nagasaki
owns another version of this photograph by Stillfried, taken from a slightly different angle.
Exhibitions with this item
Views and Costumes of China & Japan
Other views of this item
Related images
Related subjects
People
>
Adults
>
Men
People
>
Commercial activities
>
Street traders
Places
>
Asia
>
Japan
More like this