A Yokohama-e woodblock print depicting a Dutch ship by Utagawa Yoshitora (act. 1846-1880)
Signed and dated 1859
Colour woodblock-print, H. 35.5 x W. 24 cm
The text of the present print reads:
Picture of a Dutch ship
Dutch ships are made of good wood and are used in the art of navigation.
They conquered the five oceans with their skill in navigation.
The ships are solid build with iron nails and the gaps are filled with paint.
Thus, they leave Holland (Batavia?) in April and arrive at Nagasaki in June, sailing through the vast ocean against the stormy winds.
When the ship arrives in port, it fires its cannons, the sound and smoke reaching the sky, and hoist its sails to anchor.
When leaving the port, it fires its cannons, sending the sound an smoke into the sky, and when many sails are raised, the sight of the ship is a sight to behold.
It is truly a marvelous sight to see them enter and leave the port, as if they are performing a divine act.
In the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, there are three Ukiyo-e woodblock prints from the same series by Yoshitora, depicting a Chinese ship (2007.49.209), an English ship (2007.49.210) and an American ship (2007.49.211), all three with a portrait of the captain in the top left hand corner, and an explanation written by Kanagaki Robun (1829-1894), a journalist from Edo, and all dated in different months in 1862.
Yoshitora was active from about 1846 till about 1880. In 1849 he produced a print the censors interpreted as criticism of the Shogunate and Yoshitora was manacled for fifty days and afterwards moved from Edo to Yokohama where he continued to produce illustrations prolifically, particularly of foreigners who arrived in Yokohama after Japan had been forced to open its ports to foreign trade in 1868.
Related objects
A woodblock print by Yoshikazu, titled 'Picture of the Landing of Foreigners of the Five Nations in Yokohama’, Gokakoku ijin Yokohama jõriku no zu
A woodblock print by Yoshikazu, titled 'Picture of the Landing of Foreigners of the Five Nations in Yokohama’, Gokakoku ijin Yokohama jõriku no zu Published by Enshũya Hikobei, 1861
A Japanese Ukiyo-e print depicting the ‘Shogunate Minamoto-no Yoritomo attacking Takadate castle for conquest’
The print covers the Boshin War in the first year of the Meiji government. At that time, after the victory of the Meiji in 1868, everything had to be Kamakura or Muromachi, and nothing Edo, not to be censured by the Meiji government. Hence, the conqueror on the print is described as "Lord Yorimoto". In fact, it shows the Meiji government troops landing and marching through the mountains in Chokanzu. Other sites, such as Matsushima, Sendai, Fukushima, Mt. Bandai, Lake Inawashiro, Nihonmatsu and Yonezawa, are also visible. The ship is not the Dutch-made *Kaiyo Maru* (Soembing) of the Shogunate's army, but probably the Kasuga, which the Satsuma domain, fighting on the Meiji side, bought from Britain.
