A Distant View of Yokohama Honmura, the Licensed District, Noge Bridge, and Yoshida Bridge, from the Entrance to Yokohama near the Mountain Pass at at Noge Village
3rd month, 1860
Medium
Woodblock print; ink and color on paper
Dimensions
Image: 14 1/2 x 9 1/2 in. (36.8 x 24.1 cm)
Classification
Prints
Culture & Period
Japan · Edo period (1615–1868)
Department
Asian Art
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of William S. Lieberman, 2005
Accession Number
2007.49.109
Tags
Art Historical Context
In this vibrant woodblock print from the3rd month of 1860, Utagawa (Gountei) Sadahide, a master of the Utagawa, captures a sweeping vista of Yokohama's emerging urban landscape. Viewed from the entrance near Noge Village's mountain pass, the composition showcases the Honmura licensed district—a lively pleasure quarter—flanked by the iconic Noge and Yoshida Bridges, with boats dotting the waterways below. Sadahide's ukiyo-e style, the "floating world" of everyday pleasures and transient scenes, brings the bustling harbor to life with crowds of men and women going about their day. Created durin...
About the Artist
Utagawa (Gountei) Sadahide · 1807–1873
Utagawa Sadahide was born Hashimoto Kenjirō in 1807 in Fusa Province, in the area of modern Chiba Prefecture, Japan. In the 1820s he entered the studio of the enormously prolific and influential master Utagawa Kunisada, becoming one of Kunisada's most prominent pupils and adopting the studio name Sadahide along with the Utagawa school's celebrated lineage. By 1828 his name appeared on a monument l...