Hanauri - Paperback

Book Synopsis

A multimedia historical arrangement of the identity and iconography of Japanese street flower peddlers of the 19th century

Using a variety of mediums to analyze a single subject, Hanauri is a project dedicated to the eponymous flower-selling peddlers of Edo and Meiji Japan. Artist and collector Linda Fregni Nagler selects 26 albumen prints from the mid-19th century and presents them alongside six large silver salt prints hand-colored by the artist and four stereoscopic glass positives, all depicting this class of street vendor. In conversation with these photographs, Fregni Nagler draws in a swath of contemporaneous materials: woodcuts that decry the iconography of hanauri; prints by Utagawa Kunisada including Toyokuni III from the series Six sellers on summer evenings; precious kesa textiles from the MAO collection; three kimonos; and fine lacquerware and kakemono. Together, these objects provide a link to image-making both before and after the invention of photography.