Foreign Traders at Yokohama Transporting Merchandise to Their Ships 

Small boats laden with cargo weave through the waves between large black ships. With all this movement, it feels like a collision could occur at any moment. Observing the national flags and the red captions near the boats, we can identify ships belonging to, from right to left, Russia, England, the Netherlands, the United States, and France—all of the countries with which Japan had signed treaties of amity and commerce in 1858.
Sadahide was so committed to capturing these scenes that a story is told of him losing his brush while sketching on a small boat and then being handed a pencil by a foreign sailor so he could continue. Some art historians believe this particular dynamic composition might have been based on a picture of an incident he had seen in a British illustrated newspaper. What is certain is that he was one of the first artists to pay attention to Yokohama after the opening of its port, and he was determined to convey its vitality to the broader society. Here, exaggeration and compositional influences have merged to create an arresting painting on a grand scale.
(SAKAMOTO Kyoko)