"America": A Steamship in Transit

This 1861 [triptych](/glossary/triptych) of woodblock prints, ink and color on paper, held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession number 2007.49.173a-c), is among the most spectacular surviving examples of Bakumatsu visual reportage on the arrival of Western maritime technology in Japanese waters. Each of the three sheets measures roughly 36 by 24.8 cm, joined to form a panoramic image of an American steamship under way, with billowing smoke from its stack, full sails on its masts, and detailed depiction of its hull, rigging, paddlewheels, and crew. The triptych belongs to a small group of Yoshikazu's prints that focused specifically on the American steamships that began to arrive in Yokohama after the 1858 Harris Treaty, the direct technological descendants of the Black Ships (kurofune) that Commodore Matthew Perry's squadron had brought into Edo Bay in 1853 and 1854. The Black Ships had electrified Japan and triggered the rapid reorganization of Japanese foreign and naval policy that ultimately produced the Meiji Restoration of 1868; by 1861 the steamships that had once seemed alien apparitions were a steady presence in Japanese ports. Yoshikazu's print treats the vessel almost as a portrait subject, with the careful attention to mechanical detail and the bright printed palette that characterize his finest [Yokohama-e](/glossary/yokohama-e). The triptych is signed Issen Yoshikazu ga and entered the Metropolitan Museum's collection in 2005 through the Bequest of William S. Lieberman.