A collection of rare photographs of samurai presented by Daniella Dangoor is being exhibited at The London Photograph Fair. Most photographs purporting to be of samurai are actually not and were taken after 1877, when the samurai system was abolished. These images are of genuine samurai, taken between 1860 and 1877. The photographs in the collection offer a rare glimpse into a vanishing world

Portrait of a masterless samurai, Yokohama, c1867

Albumen print from wet collodion negative. This portrait taken during the early 1870s by the Yokohama photographer Shimooka Renjo, himself born into a family of low-ranking samurai, illustrates the fate of many samurai as the new government stripped them of their status and privileges. Some adopted professions they had been taught to despise, others fell between the cracks and eked out a vagabond existence on the edge of society, offering their swords for hire

Portrait of Tokugawa Akitake, Paris, 1867

Albumen print from wet collodion negative. Half-brother of the last Shogun and lord of the Mito domain, Tokugawa Akitake was dispatched to France in 1867 as a special emissary, accompanying the Japanese delegation to the Universal Exposition in Paris. He returned to Japan when the Shogun was deposed in 1868

Kubota Sentarô in armour wielding a sword, Yokohama, circa 1864

Albumen print from wet collodion negative. The commander of the Kanagawa garrison.