A Career of Japan

Baron Raimund Von Stillfried and Early Yokohama Photography
Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-90-04-69975-5
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, 372 Seiten, Format (B × H): 190 mm x 257 mm, Gewicht: 1042 g

A Career of Japan is the first study of one of the major photographers and personalities of nineteenth-century Japan. Baron Raimund von Stillfried was the most important foreign-born photographer of the Meiji era and one of the first globally active photographers of his generation. He played a key role in the international image of Japan and the adoption of photography within Japanese society itself. Yet, the lack of a thorough study of his activities, travels, and work has been a fundamental gap in both Japanese- and Western-language scholarship. Based on extensive new primary sources and unpublished documents from archives around the world, this book examines von Stillfried’s significance as a cultural mediator between Japan and Central Europe. It highlights the tensions and fierce competition that underpinned the globalising photographic industry at a site of cultural contact and exchange – treaty-port Yokohama. In the process, it raises key questions for Japanese visual culture, Habsburg studies, and cross-cultural histories of photography and globalisation.

A Career of Japan is the winner of the 2nd Professor Josef Kreiner Hosei University Award for International Studies (Kreiner Award).

“Luke Gartlan’s book is a compelling and enjoyable read, and contributes major new perspectives to the growing field of Meiji photography. It will certainly be the authoritative work on Raimund von Stillfried, but it is also impressive for its contributions to other important areas of Meiji cultural studies, including representations of the emperor, photography of Hokkaido, and world’s fairs.” Bert Winther-Tamaki (University of California, Irvine)

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gartlan, Luke

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Fotografie Einzelne Fotografen
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Fotografie Fotografie: Geschichte und Sammlungen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments
Note for the Reader

Introduction: With Argus Eyes
The Death of a Photographer
Objectives and Parameters
Chapter Outline

1. From Dreams to Specters
On the Frontiers of Empire
Maritime and Artistic Education
Military Service and Travels
Serving Emperor Maximilian in Mexico
The Legacy of Querétaro
Empire Lost

2. Changing View s
First Visit to Japan, 1864–65 35
Serving Empire In Absentia
Felice Beato: Mentor and Model?
First Portfolios
An Expatriate Market
The Coming of the Globetrotter

3. “The Mikado Photograph Affair”
Touring Yokosuka Arsenal
Photographing the Emperor
Censoring the Foreigner
The Imperial Commissions
Circulation and Display

4. Picturing Hokkaido
Terms and Duties
The Hokkaido Commission
Views of Hokkaido
The Ainu as Subject
Reprographic Afterlives

5. Sex and Violence in the Tea house
Preparations
At the Vienna World Exposition
A Teahouse for Vienna
Blood Statement

6. A Merchant of Images
Austro-Hungarian Globetrotters
The Rise of the Japan Photographic Association
Toward a Global Enterprise

7. Constructing and Contesting Japan
Four Photographic Albums
Colored Costumes
Masters and Apprentices

8. The Trials of Stillfried
Hermann Andersen and “Stillfried and Andersen”
Professor Stillfried: An Expert Witness and Instructor
The Consular Courts and the Arrival of Franz von Stillfried
A New Series, Painted and Unpainted
Stillfried and the Return to Paints
Conclusion: Visual Histories and Volatile Markets

Afterword: A Prodigal Subject
The Presentation of Self
Exhibiting Asia in Vienna
Rethinking the Travel Photographer

Appendix A
Baron Heinrich von Calice, Jedo [Tokyo], to Count Friedrich von Beust, Vienna. Bericht über eine
Beschwerde gegen Baron Stillfried wegen Aufnahme und Verkauf einer Photographie des Mikado und
daraus entstandene Unzukömmlichkeiten (Report on a Complaint against Baron Stillfried due to the
Taking and Marketing of a Photograph of the Mikado and Any Resulting Inconveniences), 20 January 1872.

Appendix B
[Watanabe Hiromoto], Transcription of an Interview with the Carpenter Genkichi, November–
December 1873, Vienna.

Appendix C
A Brief Timeline of Raimund von Stillfried’s Studios, Associates, and Competitors.

Appendix D
Indenture of Sale of Photographic Goods from Raimund von Stillfried to Franz von Stillfried, United
States Consulate in Yokohama, 6 December 1879.

Glossary of Japanese Terms
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Luke Gartlan (PhD 2004) is a lecturer at the School of Art History, University of St Andrews. He is the editor of the peer-reviewed international quarterly History of Photography, and co-editor, with Ali Behdad, of Photography's Orientalism: New Essays on Colonial Representation (Getty Research Institute, 2013). His research concerns photography and cultural exchange in the nineteenth century, especially with reference to the camera’s role in colonial-era visual culture, histories of travel and exploration, and non-Western responses to photography.