Album containing 219 albumen prints (RCINs 2580921-2581139) taken in Japan around 1881. This is one of the nine albums compiled following Prince Albert Victor (1864-92) and Prince George of Wales' (1865-1936) world tour aboard HMS Bacchante from 1879 to 1882. The photographs were collected by their chaperon and tutor, John Neale Dalton.

By far the majority of the images in these albums are topographical views and architectural studies, loosely arranged according to the group’s itinerary. Sparsely pasted among them are photographs of artefacts, local people and public figures, as well as portraits of the princes taken during the tour. The attempt to recreate the experience of a journey through such a heterogeneous collection of images is common to many amateur travelling albums of this period.

The Japan volume includes works by numerous well-known photographers, both western and local, such as Felice Beato (c.1834-1907), Baron Raimund von Stillfried (1839-1911) and Uchida Kuichi (c.1844-75). However, the majority of the plates are yet to be attributed, largely because the output of various photographic studios from this period remains to be researched fully. In addition, negative plates often changed hands as photographic firms amalgamated. It was not unusual for photographers to acquire other studios’ negatives from which they would reproduce prints as part of their own repertoire.

The album is formed by two thematic parts. The first section contains generic hand-coloured portraits of local people taken in studios or outdoors. Sitters include conventional figures, such as men in armour and women in kimono, as well as representatives from across the Japanese social order, from prisoners and porters to Buddhist monks and Shintō priests.

The album’s second, longer section comprises photographs of natural and historic sites, almost all of which, aside from Nikkō’s shrines, were visited by the princes. This group begins with two images of Enryōkan, the western-style building where the princes stayed on arrival in Japan. Moving southwards, next come the Shiba temple complex, Ueno Park and Edo Castle in Tokyo, followed by Osaka Castle, Mount Fuji and Kōbe. The subsequent views of Kyoto form an important part of the volume. Another significant section is dedicated to images of Nara’s seven great temples and the Kasuga Grand Shrine, together with Nikkō’s shogunal gateways and pavilions. Towards the end of the volume, and after a spell of pages with photographs of artefacts and interiors of Nara’s temples, is a group of large-scale prints. These high-quality final photographs feature Tokyo’s Imperial Palace and gardens, Zōjō-ji in Shiba Park and Kanazawa.

Although it is possible that the binding is not part of the original object, the photographs remain important souvenirs that present an intriguing jigsaw of what Dalton considered to be the two princes’ perception of Japan.

Text adapted from Japan: Courts and Culture (2020)