The firm of Stillfried & Andersen, also known as the Japan Photographic Association, was a photographic studio

Photographic studio

A photographic studio is both a workspace and a corporate body. As a workspace it is much like an artist’s studio, but providing space to take, develop, print and duplicate photographs. Photographic training and the display of finished photographs may also be accommodated in a photographic studio...

 founded by Baron Raimund von Stillfried

Baron Raimund von Stillfried

Baron Raimund von Stillfried, also known as Baron Raimund von Stillfried-Rathenitz , was an Austrian photographer.He was a son of August Wilhelm Freiherr Stillfried von Rathenitz Baron Raimund von Stillfried, also known as Baron Raimund von Stillfried-Rathenitz (6 August 1839, Komotau  – 12...

 and Hermann Andersen that operated in Yokohama

Yokohama

is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 between 1876 and 1885. The studio is noted for its fine portraits and landscapes that were often hand-coloured and presented in beautifully bound albums. The firm also produced photographic prints from negatives by Felice Beato

Felice Beato

Felice Beato , also known as Felix Beato, was an Italian–British photographer. He was one of the first people to take photographs in East Asia and one of the first war photographers. He is noted for his genre works, portraits, and views and panoramas of the architecture and landscapes of Asia and...

.

After at least two visits to Japan in the early-to-mid 1860s, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n photographer and nobleman Baron Raimund von Stillfried became a resident of Yokohama in 1868 where he learned photography from Felice Beato. In August 1871 he established his own photographic studio, called Stillfried & Co.. In 1875 Hermann Andersen was listed as an employee of Stillfried & Co. but by 1876 Andersen had formed a partnership with Stillfried and so the firm was renamed Stillfried & Andersen. Another incarnation of the firm was the Japan Photographic Association, under which name it was listed in 1875. Until 1885 the firm operated under both names interchangeably.

In 1877 Stillfried & Andersen purchased the studio and stock of Felice Beato and in the same year or shortly thereafter published Views and Costumes of Japan, which included photographs by Beato and Stillfried, as well as reprints of some of Beato's works.

The partnership between Stillfried and Andersen was legally dissolved in 1878, though Andersen continued to run the studio under the same name of Stillfried & Andersen. In the subsequent years a number of legal battles and other entanglements ensued between the two, also involving Stillfried's brother, Franz von Stillfried. Around 1885, Kusakabe Kimbei

Kusakabe Kimbei

Kusakabe Kimbei was a Japanese photographer. He usually went by his given name, Kimbei, because his clientele, mostly non-Japanese-speaking foreign residents and visitors, found it easier to pronounce than his family name....

 obtained a quantity of Stillfried's original negatives, which Kusakabe included in some of his albums in the late 1880s and the 1890s. The firm of Stillfried & Andersen was finally bought by Adolfo Farsari

Adolfo Farsari

Adolfo Farsari was an Italian photographer based in Yokohama, Japan. Following a brief military career, including service in the American Civil War, he became a successful entrepreneur and commercial photographer...

in 1885, by which point neither Stillfried nor Andersen was resident in Japan. Farsari held the bulk of the firm's negatives, only for them to be destroyed in a fire in 1886 along with all of Adolfo Farsari's own stock.