Fleurs Japonaises brings together thirty-eight plates from Ogawa Kazumasa’s 1896 work on indigenous Japanese flowers. Lotuses, chrysanthemums, lilies, and morning glories appear in delicate close study, not as incidental botanical specimens but as carefully composed photographic subjects. Ogawa made the images himself, placing the book within the wider practice of a Meiji-era pioneer who was simultaneously a photographer, photographic printer, and publisher of illustrated books for Western audiences.
The original plates were produced through the phototype process and finished by hand-colouring. That combination gives the images a particular historical and material character: photography supplies precise observation, while the applied colour introduces a measured, tactile interpretation of each bloom. The flowers are therefore held between documentation and pictorial representation, a tension that remains central to the book’s appeal.
The 2013 edition, issued by 5 Continents Editions, reproduces all thirty-eight plates of the original work. Its concise 48-page format preserves the focus of the project rather than expanding it into a broad survey, allowing the sequence to be read as a sustained meditation on form, species, and the visual possibilities of early Japanese photography. An original copy is held by the J. Paul Getty Museum, underscoring the work’s place within the history of photographic publishing.
For a serious collector, Fleurs Japonaises offers a concentrated encounter with an important Meiji-period figure and with a technically distinctive form of colour photography. The French-language edition’s Japanese binding, modest dimensions, and faithful presentation of the complete plate sequence make it a thoughtful object for studying how botanical imagery, photographic craft, and cross-cultural publishing met in Ogawa’s practice.
