A Belated Souvenir: A Tokyo Album from the Archives of Baron F. R. Osten-Sacken

The article provides an overview of the Japanese album of woodcuts from the collection of an employee of the Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a traveler and a member of the Russian Geographical Society, Baron Fyodor Romanovich Osten- Saken, stored in the Russian Archive of Ancient Acts (RAAA). The album is dated by the owner in 1893. In total, the album contains eleven color engravings with the sights of Meiji Tokyo. Most of the buildings depicted on the engravings have not survived to this day, and therefore the woodcuts have historical value. Information about the engravings of the Osten-Sacken album is published for the first time. The author has translated eleven explanatory inscriptions in Japanese made for engravings in the uki-yo genre. The article is supplied with rich illustrative material from RAAA.