3-011-670 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

A Japanese barber - from a sketch by our special artist, 1864. 'We present this week another of those characteristic Illustrations of the manners and customs of the Japanese people, with which our Artist and Correspondent at Yokohama has abundantly supplied us. The sketch we have here engraved represents a Japanese barber in the act of dressing the head of one of his patients. He is gathering up the topknot, which is to be tied with an ornamental band, the rest of the crown being scrupulously shaved. The whole operation is tedious enough, but the elderly gentleman whom we see under the barber's hands in this instance has evidently made up his mind to a long sitting, with his legs tucked beneath the low table on which are placed a pair of basins containing the soap-lather and other lavements. The Japanese cutlery is excellent, and there is no fear of a blunt razor in this respectable barber's shop'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.