Night View of the Yamato Tea-house in Nawate Dori Seen from Shijo Bridge
- Date:
- 1836-1870
- Medium:
- Woodblock print; ink and color on paper
- Source:
- Metropolitan Museum of Art
This Metropolitan Museum of Art miniature print by Hasegawa Sadanobu I captures a nocturnal view of Kyoto's famous Yamato teahouse on Nawate-dori, the entertainment thoroughfare that runs north from Shijo Bridge along the eastern bank of the Kamo River. The composition belongs to a category of small-format prints — typically the size of a postcard — that Sadanobu I produced as souvenir and gift items aimed at travelers, festival-goers, and a broad popular market that valued portable images of celebrated locations. The night-scene treatment, with lighted lanterns and architectural silhouettes against a dark sky, demonstrates Sadanobu's command of the technical refinements of mid-nineteenth-century Osaka color printing — careful gradation, subtle [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) (graded background), and balanced light-against-dark composition. The Met's holding, accessioned as JP1403, comes from the early-twentieth-century acquisition of Japanese prints by the museum, when miniature and standard formats alike entered Western collections through the same dealers and donors.
Late 1830s or early 1840s
Color woodblock print
1836-1870
Woodblock print; ink and color on paper
1867 (Meiji 1)
Triptych of woodblock prints; ink and color on paper
1870-71
Color woodblock print
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Night View of the Yamato Tea-house in Nawate Dori Seen from Shijo Bridge was created by Hasegawa Sadanobu I (長谷川貞信) in 1836-1870.
Night View of the Yamato Tea-house in Nawate Dori Seen from Shijo Bridge depicts landscapes and bridges.