U.S.S. BALTIMORE NAVAL TRAVEL SCRAPBOOK WITH MEIJI JAPAN & EGYPT HAND-COLORED PHOTOGRAPHS, CRUCIFIXION & GOKUMON, 1898 ST. KITTS PROGRAM

Item #1676

Late 19th-century naval travel scrapbook / photograph album, measuring 10.25" x 12.5", containing 44 photographs, many hand-colored albumen or commercial travel photographs measuring approximately 8" x 10" and 3.5" x 5", mounted to album leaves. The inside front cover bears a faint pencil ownership inscription apparently reading “W. H. Garner, Boatswain’s Mate, U.S. Navy,” providing a likely naval provenance for the album.

There is one large mounted group photograph captioned “Officers U.S.S. Baltimore,” and another large group image of sailors aboard ship. There is also a printed Christmas Day 1898 program from St. Kitts, West Indies, for the U.S.S. Annapolis and U.S.S. Vicksburg. The program lists officers and a schedule of shipboard sports, including races, contests, and boxing.

The album includes a substantial group of Meiji-era Japanese souvenir photographs, many titled in the negative or captioned by hand, including “Crucifixion & Gokumon,” “The Carp,” “Yokohama Hatoba,” “Kamakura Daibutsu,” “Marriage,” “Iseyama, Yokohama,” “Yokohama Railway Station,” “Japanese Ship,” “Jinrikisha,” “Nagasaki Harbor,” “Eating,” the Grand Hotel, Yokohama, women’s occupations, street vendors, rickshaw scenes, domestic interiors, temples, harbor views, and scenes of Japanese life and travel. The most striking image is “Crucifixion & Gokumon,” a macabre staged punishment scene showing severed heads displayed on a wooden rail and a crucified body in the background.

Also present is a group of commercial Egypt / North Africa photographs with period manuscript captions, including “Arabs,” “Scene in Cairo,” “Lower Class Egyptian,” “Married Egyptian Woman,” “Egyptian & Arab,” and “Married Egyptian Woman with Child.” These images include posed studio and street scenes, veiled women, men in traditional dress, and ethnographic-style tourist subjects typical of the late-19th-century commercial travel photograph trade.

Additional images include naval officers and sailors, Newport / Naval Academy-related views, travel scenes, and other commercial and personal photographs. Taken together, the album suggests the travels or collecting interests of a U.S. Navy sailor during the late 1890s, combining naval material, Japanese souvenir photography, Egypt / North Africa commercial imagery, and shipboard ephemera.

Bound in a cloth “Scrap Album” binding. Covers worn, rubbed, soiled, and frayed; album leaves toned, soiled, creased, and edge-worn; photographs mounted to the pages, with varying fading, creasing, staining, surface wear, and handling wear. Several photographs remain visually strong, with attractive period hand-coloring. A compelling late-1890s naval travel album with likely U.S. Navy ownership, U.S.S. Baltimore photographs, Meiji Japan views and genre subjects, Egypt / North Africa photographs, and scarce related 1898 naval ephemera.

Price: $1,200.00