Photo album - Japan, Tokyo family photo album, Taishō to Shōwa era (c. 1920s-1950s), Imperial Army, school life - 1905

Tokyoite family album with a black cover titled « Album » in gold script, cord binding, black cardboard pages. It brings together about 80 vintage silver gelatin prints, spanning the Taishō era and the first half of the Shōwa era. The oldest prints, notably military portraits and group portraits, likely date from the 1920s. The most recent date from the post-war period.

IMPERIAL ARMY
Studio portrait of a soldier in Type 45 uniform holding his sabre, a moustached bust portrait in a cap, a soldier posing in front of a barracks with armband and sabre. Several rare barracks scenes: room decorated with lucky figurines, a bouquet of lilies and a poster of a modern woman, a young soldier shirtless in front of a 1930s truck, a resting soldier lying in the grass.

TOKYO AND EDUCATION
About a dozen large prints of classes and school outings, from kindergarten to late primary school: in front of the Saigō Takamori statue in Ueno Park, in front of the Nijūbashi of the Imperial Palace, in temples, at the zoo, by the river. We see reinforced concrete schools from the post-1923 reconstruction and the school uniforms of the era (navy collars, caps, randoseru).

TRAVELS
Stay at Izusan Onsen and climb on volcanic terrain, probably Mount Mihara on Ōshima Island, with colonial helmets, straw hats and pilgrimage sticks. One of the prints bears a handwritten prose-poem on the back, dated May 23, 1938 (Shōwa 13) and located at Izusan, evoking the Ōshima volcano and Hatsushima Island.

FAMILY
Studio portraits of children, including one with a celluloid Kewpie doll and a print bearing the note « M. SAKAI ». Grandparents in kimono, garden scenes, group portrait of men in suits and women in kimonos, children in campaign caps during the war, then post-war portraits.

Most prints show a characteristic silver backing of old gelatin-silver prints. A coherent set, enriched by a dated print and identifiable locations.

CONDITION
Worn cover. Cardboard pages with stains and glue marks, some previously occupied by removed prints. Mounted prints, some held by decorative corners. Several prints show cracks, including a tear across a class photo, missing corners and emulsion loss on a portrait. Overall still very legible.