by Adachi Ginkō
This print, dated March 2, 1889 (Meiji 22) and held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is one sheet of a triptych commemorating the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution in the State Chamber of the new Imperial Palace in Tokyo. The Meiji Constitution, granted by the Emperor on February 11, 1889, established Japan as a constitutional monarchy with an elected Diet, an independent judiciary, and a codified declaration of subject rights, and its issuance was the foundational political event of late-Meiji statecraft. Adachi Ginkō's design records the ceremony in documentary detail: the Emperor presides over a hall filled with officials in European-style court uniforms, the architecture of the new palace is rendered with attention to Western-influenced detail, and the composition asserts the union of native sovereignty with modern constitutional form. As a piece of state-aligned visual reporting, the print belongs to a tradition of commemorative ukiyo-e documenting major imperial occasions, and it is among the most historically significant Meiji prints in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Japanese collection. It is an essential primary source for the iconography of the Meiji state at the moment of constitutional founding.
1882
Color woodblock print; oban
1894
Color woodblock print; oban triptych
1894
Color woodblock print; oban triptych
1895
Color woodblock print; oban triptych
View of the Issuance of the State Constitution in the State Chamber of the New Imperial Palace was created by Adachi Ginkō (安達吟光) in March 2, 1889 (Meiji 22).