[Geisha with Attendant] 1860s Yokoyama Matsusaburō Japanese When Japan opened its ports to the West in the 1850s, photography—called shashin, literally, a copy of truth—soon became widely available. High-end professional salons and open-air studios operated by itinerant practitioners offered portraits at every price range. While the popularity of ambrotypes, a positive photograph on glass, was short-lived in the United States, Japanese ambrotypes were in demand from the early 1870s until the end of the nineteenth century. These two ambrotype portraits depict a dreamy-eyed, fourteen-year-old st

[Geisha with Attendant] 1860s Yokoyama Matsusaburō Japanese When Japan opened its ports to the West in the 1850s, photography—called shashin, literally, a copy of truth—soon became widely available. High-end professional salons and open-air studios operated by itinerant practitioners offered portraits at every price range. While the popularity of ambrotypes, a positive photograph on glass, was short-lived in the United States, Japanese ambrotypes were in demand from the early 1870s until the end of the nineteenth century. These two ambrotype portraits depict a dreamy-eyed, fourteen-year-old student and a barefoot geisha with her attendant. Housed in poetry-inscribed kiri-wood boxes, they provide an intimate and rare glimpse of how modern Japanese society represented [Geisha with Attendant] Yokoyama Matsusaburo (Japanese, 1838–1884) [Geisha with Attendant], 1860s Ambrotype; Image: 10 x cm (3 15/16 x 3 in.) Case: x x cm (1/2 x 4 3/8 x 3 3/8 in.) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Funds from various donors, 2004 (, b)

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