#lanternslide

In honor of National Rice Month, here is a series of hand-colored lantern slides of the rice farming process in Japan, from stirring the rice paddy field to get the field ready and hand planting the rice sprouts. Stay tuned for the next post on harvesting and polishing rice. These lantern slides are a part of Etz-Trudell collection of hand-colored lantern slides of Japan, Korea, and India.

We've made it to Wednesday, the weekend is in sight! We are almost as excited about that as these pigs are for their breakfast.

Here’s our second post on hand-colored lantern slides illustrating the rice farming process in Japan. In this post, you see the rice being harvested and polished. Happy National Rice Month!

Hand-coloring technique was introduced in Europe in the 1840s, but the practice of hand coloring photographs became more refined and widespread in Japan. By the 1880s, it had become a common practice and a defining characteristic of Japanese tourist photography.

Working on a low wooden table laid out with brushes, inkstones, and porcelain bowls, artists applied colors, prepared with a small amount of buckskin glue, in a delicate and precise manner. In the 1880s and 1890s they began using more vivid colors made from aniline dyes. 

The process of coloring a photograph was infinitely tedious, and a master colorist could be expected to produce two or three finished prints during a twelve-hour day. Eventually, studios hired more artists and set up a kind of production line with each man or woman responsible for a range of colors or a particular area of a photograph. One artist colored faces, for example, then he or she passed the photograph along to another who colored clothing, and so on. This greatly increased the number of finished prints in a day. Various sources estimate that by the 1890s successful studios employed anywhere from around 20 to 100 colorists. 

April is National Month of Hope, and do we need hope more than ever right now. Here in Cambridge, Massachusetts, we’re seeing many flowers blooming now, including cherry blossoms on campus. Spring flowers are the sign of hope. 

Image 1: Cherry blossoms outside the library taken on April 12, 2022.

In honor of National Hot Tea Month, we are posting some photographs from our Special Collections to remind ourselves of the journey that each cup of tea takes before warming our hands. The first image shows a hand-colored lantern slide depicting a scene of tea harvesting in Japan. The second image, also a lantern slide, shows three Japanese men packing tea into large boxes. The third image, a black and white photograph, features a tea and fruit seller in Kabul, and the last image is a color photograph of a man drinking tea from a saucer in Iran. Tea has been consumed in many different cultures for thousands of years. We hope you’re enjoying your cuppa this month!

Image 1: Tea harvesting, Japan. Takagi, Teijiro, Japanese [photographer] HOLLIS number: olvwork370983 Hand colored lantern slides 8 x 10 cm Part of Etz-Trudell collection of hand-colored lantern slides of Japan, Korea and India Related information For further information, please see HOLLIS record 10155668. 1900-1940

Image 2: Men packing tea in boxes, Japan. HOLLIS number: olvwork371871

Image 3: Merchant selling tea and fruits at Kabul Thomas, Lowell, 1892-1981, American [photographer] Chase, Harry A., active 1910s-20s [photographer] Gelatin silver process 12 x 16 cm. 1922 HOLLIS number: olvwork532162

May is National Photography Month. Today, in honor of spring, we’re posting some images of cherry blossoms from our Early Photography of Japan collection.

Early Photography of Japan is a virtual collection of more than 40 souvenir photograph albums and illustrated publications with over 2,000 images from Widener Library, the Fine Arts Library, and Harvard-Yenching Library. These images primarily document the early history of commercial photography in Japan and are representative of what is often called Japanese tourist photography or Yokohama shashin. They reflect Western perceptions of traditional Japanese culture before the dramatic transformation brought about by modernization during the Meiji period (1868-1912).

View of Akasaka cherry [trees], Tokyo Cherry trees lining Benkei Moat, with Benkei Bridge in the distance, in the Akasaka district of Tokyo. Hand-colored albumen print mounted in album. 21 x 27 cm. Part of E.G. Stillman Japanese Collection Part of Early Photography of Japan HOLLIS Catalog record Repository: Harvard Fine Arts Library, Special Collections HOLLIS number: olvwork553623

Teahouse and cherry trees in Ueno Park, Tokyo Hand-colored albumen print mounted in album. 21 x 27 cm. Repository: Harvard Fine Arts Library, Special Collections HOLLIS number: olvwork553618

Today is World Environment Day.

This year’s theme is REIMAGINE. RECREATE. RESTORE.

“This is our moment. We cannot turn back time. But we can grow trees, green our cities, rewild our gardens, change our diets and clean up rivers and coasts. We are the generation that can make peace with nature.” – from the website: https://www.worldenvironmentday.global

Unidentified landscape, vast field with vegetation with a mountain in the background. Enami, T., 1859-1929, Japanese [photographer] Hand-colored lantern slides 8 x 10 cm Part of Etz-Trudell collection of hand-colored lantern slides of Japan, Korea and India Use restrictions: Harvard Fine Arts Library, Special Collections: Copyright 2007; all rights reserved. Photographs and images from the collection may be reproduced only with written permission. 1900-1940 Repository: Harvard Fine Arts Library, Special Collections HOLLIS number: olvwork372204

Chapultepec Forest Barona, Dolores Soto de, 1869-1964, Mexican [artist] Oil on canvas 109 x 147 cm. Mexican HOLLIS number: olvwork205153

Castle Rock, Columbia River Watkins, Carleton Emmons, 1829-1916, American [photographer] Mammoth plate print American 1867 HOLLIS number: olvwork361988