Russian (Oroshiajin), from the series People of the Five Nations

This 1861 color woodblock print ([nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e)) in the standard ōban format, held by the Art Institute of Chicago (accession number from the 1926 Chadbourne gift), is from Utagawa Yoshitora's series "People of the Five Nations" (Gokakoku jinbutsu zue), one of the canonical [Yokohama-e](/glossary/yokohama-e) series of the early Bakumatsu period. Titled "Russian (Oroshiajin)," the print depicts a Russian figure in characteristic dress as part of a five-print set covering the principal foreign powers active in the new treaty ports — typically America, Britain, the Netherlands, France, and Russia. The "five nations" framework reflected the 1858 Ansei treaties that opened Japan to commercial relations with these powers and that established the Yokohama foreign settlement. Yoshitora's depiction draws on the small but growing body of Russian visual material available in Edo through the limited diplomatic and trading channels of the period. The print belongs to the Art Institute of Chicago's extensive holdings of Yoshitora's Yokohama-e assembled through the gift of Emily Crane Chadbourne in 1926 and stands as a representative example of the early-1860s national-portrait genre at its most influential.