Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paperexpand_more
Gift of Markle Karlenexpand_more 2012.75d
After the opening of Japan to the West in the 1850s, pictures of foreigners became a popular motif for woodblock prints. Such images were called Yokohama-e (Yokohama pictures), because the major port city of Yokohama teemed with foreigners. They showed the modern world, including foreigners both in Japan and in their home countries, as imagined by Japanese artists who had never traveled abroad.
When this print was created, China was ruled by the Qing dynasty, and Nanjing was its largest city, with four million people. Nanjing was known for its canals and stone bridges. Since Japanese buyers would not have been familiar with this scene, the design includes, at the top of the center sheet, a description with information on China written by Kanagaki Robun, a 19th-century journalist and author of humorous fiction.
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