[Seated Woman]

Scarce Japanese ambrotype in original kiri case of a seated woman at a table.

Among the first photographs to be made by Japanese photographers exclusively for Japanese clients, ambrotypes—collodion negatives exposed on blackened glass to make them look like positive images—were produced in large numbers in Japan in the 1880s and 1890s, well after the process had been superseded in the West.[ Usually featuring full-length studio portraits of individuals and groups, they were presented in light Kiri-wood cases, carefully handcrafted to snugly fit each image. These cases sometimes feature a photographer’s stamp or inscription as well as a message or poem from the client; a portrait of a young man might be accompanied, for example, by several poems brushed onto the case by his father, exhorting him to live an upright life. In many ways these unique combinations of photography and calligraphy exemplify the tensions of the Meiji era, a time when Japan was seeking to reconcile its own traditions with the ways of the West, including the widening influence of photography itself.[2]