Negotiations with Li-Hung-chang, Chinese peace plenipotentiary

This print by Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847–1915) depicts the peace negotiations that concluded the First Sino-Japanese War, held at Shimonoseki in March and April 1895. Li Hongzhang (1823–1901), rendered as 'Li Hung-chang' in contemporary Western and Japanese transliteration, served as the Qing Empire's chief plenipotentiary and negotiated the Treaty of Shimonoseki with Japanese representatives including Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi. Kiyochika's composition likely shows the formal conference setting with delegations on opposing sides of a table, rendered with the diplomatic gravity the occasion demanded. The negotiations were complicated on March 28 by an assassination attempt on Li Hongzhang by a Japanese nationalist — an incident that altered the diplomatic trajectory and embarrassed the Japanese government. Kiyochika's prints of wartime diplomacy draw on the same demand for visual news that fueled his battle series, translating formal political events into accessible imagery for a domestic audience through a blend of ukiyo-e convention and Western-influenced interior staging.