Print (Sheet of a Triptych, JP3228)

This sheet, one panel of a triptych of polychrome woodblock prints held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession JP3228, gift of Lincoln Kirstein, 1959), is closely related to the triptych accessioned as JP3227 and forms part of the same group of Ikkei's railway and modernization-themed prints from around 1870. Like its companion, the sheet depicts a portion of a station or transit scene during the inaugural period of Meiji-era Japanese railway transport, with the saturated reds and pinks of the early Meiji aniline palette dominating the costume and architectural details and the figures arranged in close foreground bands characteristic of Ikkei's design practice. The Metropolitan's catalog records the work as ink and color on paper, with the complete triptych measuring approximately 35.7 by 71.4 cm. The sheet exemplifies the role that ukiyo-e played in documenting and publicizing the new infrastructure of the Meiji state during the years when the Western-style technologies of railway, telegraph, and gas lighting were first being installed in the capital, and it is part of the Metropolitan's foundational holdings of yokohama-e and early Meiji print material assembled through the Lincoln Kirstein gift of 1959.