Figure 1.--This Japanese cabinet card portrait of a well-to-do family is one of the new style mounts that appeared after the turn-of th 20th century. There is a message on the back, probably with the name of the family, but we can not translate it. We do know that the portrait was taken in 1911 and the studio was Dokuritsu-ken. We are not sure if father took the photograph or if the studio sent a photographer to the home.

As in America and Europe, there was a definite shift in the styles of mounts. This shift seems to have occurred about the turn-of-the 20th century, although the exact time line needs to be confirmed. We seemany of the same varied mount styles and sizes that we note in Europe and America along with the same colors. Japan's steady progress at industrialization meant that more and more people coukd afford to have studio portaits taken. And with the advances in photography we see more and more portraits being takrn ourside of the studios for the first time. The popularity of cabinet cards seems to have continued a little longer in Japan than it did in the West. We note cabinet cards being made at least into the early-1930s, by which time the format had been discontinued in the west. The later Japanese cabinet cards had silver nitrate rather than albumen prints. Along with the new style mount we also see more different photographic formats and not just albumen CDVs and cabinet cards like we see in the late-19th century.

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Created: 4:01 AM 8/25/2008
Last updated: 4:33 AM 3/22/2015