Adolfo Farsari was an Italian photographer based in Yokohama, Japan. His studio was one of the country’s largest and most prolific commercial photographic firms. His photographic work was highly regarded, particularly his hand-coloured portraits and landscapes. Rudyard Kipling used his work as a reference following his visit to Yokohamas in 1889.
About Adolfo Farsari in brief
Adolfo Farsari was an Italian photographer based in Yokohama, Japan. His studio was one of the country’s largest and most prolific commercial photographic firms. His photographic work was highly regarded, particularly his hand-coloured portraits and landscapes. His images were widely distributed, presented or mentioned in books and periodicals. They shaped foreign perceptions of the people and places of Japan, and to some degree affected how the Japanese saw themselves and their country. By the end of 1886 he and Chinese photographer Tong Cheong were the only foreign commercial photographers still operating in Japan. By 1890, his reputation earned it exclusive rights to photograph A. Prospective Gardens in Tokyo. Rudyard Kipling used his work as a reference following his visit to Yokohamas in 1889. He died in 1898, and was buried in the San Francisco suburb of San Francisco. He was survived by his wife, two children, and a son and daughter-in-law. He is buried in San Francisco’s San Francisco Cemetery, next to his wife’s former home, which he left to her when she moved to Japan in 1873. He also is survived by a daughter and a grandson, both of whom are still living in the U.S. and have worked for the American Embassy in Japan since the early 20th century. He had no children of his own and was married to an American woman, who died in a car accident in the 1930s. He left a fortune in photographs, including some of Japan’s most famous landmarks, to his daughter and her husband.
He never remarried and died in his sleep on February 7, 1898, at the age of 75. He leaves behind a son, who was born in Vicenza, Italy. He served in the American Civil War and was a New York State Volunteer Cavalry trooper. He later became a successful entrepreneur and commercial photographer. He taught himself photography in 1883. In 1885 he formed a partnership with photographer Tamamura Kozaburō to acquire the Stillfried & Andersen studio, which had some 15 Japanese employees. He then expanded his business interests into commercial photography. His firm was among the most prolific publishers of materials to aid travellers, having produced its first guidebook to Japan by July 1880. After his partnership with Sargent ended, the company published successive editions of Keeling’s Guide to Japan and Farsaris himself wrote and published Japanese Words and Phrases for the Use of Strangers. In 1889, by 1889, his stock comprised about 1,000 Japanese landscapes and genre portraits. His photographs were generally produced sepia monochrome albumen prints, mounted on album leaves, and sold to foreign residents and visitors. He employed excellent artists who each produced high-quality prints at a pace of two or three hand- Coloured prints per day. His work was often hand decorated and bound between covers of silk brocade or lacquer boards inlaid with ivory, mother-of-pearl and gold. He usually numbered in the images in white lettering on a black background.
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This page is based on the article Adolfo Farsari published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
