Daubing Titipu: Transnational Material Contexts of Nineteenth-Century Hand-Colored Photography in Japan

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the photographic paper and the colorant in an album of hand-colored photographs made in Japan and explores the interconnectedness between industry and the arts. To do so, it looks at the historical discourse over hand-coloring materials and follows the chain of manufacture for albumen paper in Europe, comparing both to the material evidence in the album. By doing so, this article shows that the networks of information transfer, labor, and capital worked in tandem to create the conditions of production for the photographs.