Railway Station Triptych (Sheet from JP3227)
鉄道駅図三枚続
by Shōsai Ikkei
- Date:
- c. 1870
- Medium:
- Color woodblock triptych (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
鉄道駅図三枚続
by Shōsai Ikkei
This sheet, one of three from a [triptych](/glossary/triptych) of polychrome woodblock prints held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession JP3227, gift of Lincoln Kirstein, 1959), is part of Ikkei's small but historically important group of railway and station prints documenting the new Meiji transport infrastructure. The complete triptych depicts a railway station scene, almost certainly the new Shimbashi terminus or one of the line's intermediate stops on the Tokyo-Yokohama route that opened in 1872, with the locomotive, passenger carriages, and a crowd of Japanese and foreign travelers arranged across the three panels. The Metropolitan's catalog classifies the work as both [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) and [yokohama-e](/glossary/yokohama-e) — the latter a subgenre of late Edo and early Meiji prints documenting the foreign community at Yokohama and the broader Japanese encounter with Western technology and dress. The print exemplifies Ikkei's characteristic flat color treatment, saturated early-Meiji aniline palette, and crowded foreground figure arrangement, and provides one of the few surviving images of the inaugural moment of Japanese railway travel. The Lincoln Kirstein gift of 1959 brought a substantial group of early Meiji prints into the Metropolitan's collection, of which this is one of the more historically resonant.
東京名所四十八景 洲崎乃汐干
c. 1871
Color woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
東京名所四十八景 築地ホテル
c. 1871
Color woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
錦絵三枚続
c. 1870
Color woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
東京名所四十八景 愛宕やま
c. 1871
Color woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
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.
Railway Station Triptych (Sheet from JP3227) (鉄道駅図三枚続) was created by Shōsai Ikkei (昇斎一景) in c. 1870.
Railway Station Triptych (Sheet from JP3227) depicts landscapes.