Title unknown (Woman with Umbrella) 

Shimooka Renjo was born the third son of a samurai who worked at the Funearatame-bansho (a government office responsible for inspecting and taxing the cargo transported by ships) in Uraga, Sagaminokuni (present-day Kanagawa Prefecture). After serving as a soldier in Shimoda on the Izu Peninsula, he studied under the Kano school of painting in Edo (present-day Tokyo). Later, when he was apprenticed to the American merchant Raphael Schoyer in Yokohama, he became acquainted with an American photographer, John Wilson, from whom he is thought to have obtained photographic equipment. He opened a photo studio in Noge, Yokohama, in 1862, when the medium was still becoming established in Japan.
Judging from the rug on the floor, this business-card-sized photo (carte de visite) must have been taken at Renjo’s studio. A young woman in a yatara-striped kimono and tsubushi shimada-style hairdo, holds an umbrella in her hand and wears high geta. Perhaps she had been asked to pose as a Japanese woman on a rainy day. Genre photos like this were apparently popular among foreign visitors to Japan.
(KASHIWAGi Tomoh)