TOKYO, 1906

This work was commissioned by the Imperial University of Tokyo during the late Qing dynasty to investigate and record details of the construction, architecture and decorative features of buildings within the Forbidden City and Palace grounds. This was an unprecedented accomplishment, in a hitherto secret and private complex of buildings, by the photographer, publisher and pioneer of photo-mechanical printing in Japan, and who opened Japan’s first collotype printing studio.

See another copy (no. 448 of 500), which sold at Christie's South Kensington, 8 October 2014, lot 134.