An English Soldier (Igirisu), published by Jōshūya Jūzo

An English Soldier (Igirisu), published in 1860 by Jōshūya Jūzo and bearing Utagawa Hiroshige's signature, belongs to the genre of Yokohama-e prints that flourished in the wake of the 1859 opening of Yokohama port to foreign trade and residents. Where the bulk of Hiroshige's career as the Edo ukiyo-e master had been devoted to the landscape print, the final phase saw him and other Utagawa artists turn to the new spectacle of foreigners and their ships in the treaty ports. The English soldier in this design is presented in full uniform — peaked cap, tunic, trousers, and weapon — drawn with the careful attention to costume detail that characterized the best Yokohama-e while also relying on stock conventions for foreign physiognomy. The figure stands against a simple ground that allows the brilliant pigments of the uniform to function as the primary visual event. Yokohama prints served Edo customers who were unlikely ever to see the foreign settlement themselves; they catalogued the nations represented in the treaty port and made the new international presence imaginatively available. The Harvard Art Museums impression preserves a documented example of Hiroshige's late entry into this booming genre and records the role of publisher Jōshūya Jūzo in distributing such designs to the curious Edo public.