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This Jizō statue stood on the banks of Lake Ashi in Hakone for 150 years when Felice Beato took this photo in the 1860s. Within a decade, the lakeside statue would be vandalized, sold, and removed in the aftermath of the Buddhist persecution during the early Meiji era.

Beato was a Yokohama-based photographer who found success selling photographic prints to early, thrill-seeking globetrotters. Here we see a hand-colored albumen print of the statue known as Kichizo Jizō, originally found on the grounds of Kongō-ō Temple off the Tōkaidō route.

Another photo showing scenic Lake Ashi is attached to the reverse, but this image is often attributed to Baron von Stillfried. Beato sold most of his stock to Stillfried in 1877, suggesting this page was removed from a tourist album sold by Stillfried in the late 1870s.

The bronze Kichizo Jizo statue was commissioned in 1713 and was placed with a cluster of smaller Jizō statues that sat along the shoreline (another Jizō is partly visible on the far right edge). Looking closely at Beato’s photo, we also see two Japanese men praying to the bodhisattva.

During Japan’s Buddhist persecution, the large Kongōō Temple lost its holdings and much of its statuary was eventually sold off. While smaller statues were lost in the chaos, the Kichizo Jizo was sold to a Tokyo dealer who transported it down the Odawara coast to be shipped off.

According to lore, the icon became immovable at port and was subsequently purchased by Tokujo Temple, where it remains enshrined today. To view an intact 1868 Beato souvenir album containing this photo, see the Hood Museum at Dartmouth: https://tinyurl.com/mpzhrb5d.

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