Teahouses in Kanazawa, Yokohama, Japan

Category

Library Item

Item no

15133

Title

Teahouses in Kanazawa, Yokohama, Japan

Description

Two traditional Japanese teahouses sit at the side of a river. The buildings are constructed from wood and bamboo with thatched roofs. Trees surround the buildings.

Artist / maker

von Stillfried-Ratenicz, Franz

Date

1881

Size

19.5 x 24 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.

In the Meiji Era, this area of Yokohama was particularly popular with tourists (Japanese and foreigners), the intellectual elite and politicians who enjoyed the dramatic views of the Hiragata Bay. The Bay is also famous for being depicted in Utagawa Hiroshige's print 'Twilight in Nojima' (Nojima being an island in the Bay), from the series entitled 'the Eight views of Kanazawa'.

This photograph was taken from Seto Bridge. The building on the left can be identified as the teahouse Chiyomoto-ro, and the one in the centre is either Ogiya or Murataya.

The University of Nagasaki owns another picture of these teahouses attributed to Franz Von Stillfried-Ratenicz's brother, Raimund.

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Related images

Related subjects

Landscape > Water > Rivers and streams

Places > Asia > Japan

Religion > Religious facilities > Teahouses