View of Honcho, Yokohama
横浜本町之図
- Birth Year
- 1797
- Death Year
- 1861
- Date
- 1860
- Technique, Material, Format
- woodblock, set of three
- Dimension
- right: 36.5 x 25.2 cm, center: 36.5 x 25.3 cm, left: 36.4 x 24.1 cm
- Donor name
- Ms. Saito Ryu
- Category
- Print by Japanese Artist
- Inventory Number
- 2018-PRJ-002
Utagawa Kuniyoshi was an ukiyo-e artist active towards the end of the Edo Period (1603–1868). He was popular for his dynamic portraits of warriors and paintings that satirized the politics of the time.
In the 1850s, Yokohama was designated as one of the ports to be opened to the West, and a port was quickly built by the Edo shogunate and opened in 1859. This work depicts a view of Yokohama’s Honcho-dori Street, lined with shops one year after the port opened, as seen from the 1-chome district side. On the 1-chome corner on the left, you can see Mitsui, a raw silk merchant. The wide street skillfully expresses depth using Western-style perspective, and there are detailed depictions of large carts carrying raw silk, men and women in traveling clothes, a street fishmonger carrying fish on a pole, Westerners, Chinese people, and a Western dog. The vitality of the scene is immediately apparent. This is one of Kuniyoshi’s later works.
(KASHIWAGI Tomoh)