Pictures of Famous Sights in Tokyo: Horse-Drawn Trams on Ginza Dōri
- Date:
- Meiji era, c. 1880s
- Medium:
- Woodblock print (nishiki-e), ink and color on paper
This Meiji-era woodblock print, held by the Edo-Tokyo Museum (catalogue 0189200835), depicts the horse-drawn trams that ran along the Ginza district of central Tokyo in the 1880s, one of the most distinctive sights of the early Meiji street. The Ginza had been comprehensively rebuilt after the great fire of 1872 along Western lines, with brick buildings, gas lamps, broad sidewalks, and tree-planted boulevards designed by the Irish engineer Thomas Waters to resemble a European commercial street; horse-drawn trams along the new boulevard, inaugurated in 1882, made the district the most modern in the country until the introduction of electric streetcars at the end of the century. Kunitoshi's print belongs to his Pictures of Famous Sights in Tokyo (Tōkyō meisho zue) series and is among the canonical visual records of the Meiji Ginza: a long lateral composition along the boulevard with a horse-drawn tram in the centre, brick-built shops and offices flanking the street, telegraph poles and gas lamps reaching above the rooflines, and a population of pedestrians in mixed Western and Japanese dress that exemplifies the social mixing of the modernised quarter. The high-keyed Meiji palette and the precise architectural drawing are characteristic of Kunitoshi's mature kaika-e style. The print is preserved in the Edo-Tokyo Museum's collection of Meiji-era prints.
Pictures of Famous Sights in Tokyo: Horse-Drawn Trams on Ginza Dōri was created by Utagawa Kunitoshi (歌川国利) in Meiji era, c. 1880s.
