Portrait of the Emperor Meiji. Albumen silver print.
Uchida Kuichi was the only photographer granted a sitting by the Emperor Meiji and in 1872 Uchida photographed the Emperor and Empress Haruko in full court dress and everyday robes. In 1873, Uchida again photographed the Emperor, who this time wore military dress, and a photograph from this sitting became the official imperial portrait (Ishii and Iizawa). Copies of the official portrait were distributed among foreign heads of state and Japanese regional governmental offices, but their private sale was prohibited. Nevertheless, many copies of the photograph were made and circulated on the market.
Date
1873
date QS:P571,+1873-00-00T00:00:00Z/9
Source
The Cleveland Museum of Art(Kinoshita). Published in the Japanese book, Meiji Tenno gyoden (Tokyo: Kaneo Bun'endo, 1912)
Ishii, Ayako, and Kotaro Iizawa. 'Chronology'. In 'The History of Japanese Photography' (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2003), 314.
Kinoshita, Naoyuki. 'The Early Years of Japanese Photography'. In 'The History of Japanese Photography' (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2003), 27-28.
Tucker, Anne Wilkes, et al. 'The History of Japanese Photography' (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 54, pl. 29.
Worswick, Clark. "The Disappearance of Uchida, Kyuichi and the Discovery of Nineteenth-Century Asian Photography." 'Image', vol. 36, nos. 1-2 (Spring-Summer 1993), p. 16, fig. 1; p. 30, fig. 10.
Worswick, Clark. 'Japan: Photographs 1854-1905' (New York: Pennwick/Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), p. 41, repr; pp. 136, 147.
Licensing
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
The author died in 1875, so this work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer.