19th Century Japanese Photography | Friend of Photography

Adolfo Farsari (1841-1898), a photographer, was originally an Austrian, then immigrated to the United States, and later moved to Yokohama, Japan after his divorce. This set of Japanese portraits consists of black-and-white photos taken by him in 1866, which were later manually colored to more vividly reflect the living conditions of the Japanese people at that time. It was on the eve of the Meiji Restoration, and feudal traditions from several centuries still prevailed everywhere in Japan. Signs of Chinese cultural influence could be seen in many places.