新柳二十四時 午前十二時|Twenty-Four Hours at Shinbashi/Yanagibashi: 12 Noon. (Shinyanagi nijūyo-ji, gozen jūni-ji)
Medium
Woodblock print; ink and color on paper
Dimensions
Image: 17 x 11 in. (43.2 x 27.9 cm)
Classification
Prints
Culture & Period
Japan · Meiji period (1868–1912)
Department
Asian Art
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of William S. Lieberman, 2005
Accession Number
2007.49.316
Tags
Art Historical Context
This woodblock print by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi captures a quiet moment at noon in Tokyo’s lively Shinbashi and Yanagibashi districts during the Meiji period. Created in 1880, the work belongs to a series that follows daily life across twenty-four hours in these entertainment quarters, where women—often geisha or entertainers—formed the heart of the scene. Yoshitoshi, one of the last great masters of ukiyo-e, blended traditional Japanese printmaking with fresh, modern subjects that reflected Japan’s rapid modernization after 1868. Printed with ink and color on paper using multiple carved blocks, ...
About the Artist
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi · 1839–1892
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi was born on April 30, 1839, in the Shimbashi district of Edo, the city that would become Tokyo. At the age of eleven he was apprenticed to Utagawa Kuniyoshi, one of the great masters of the Japanese woodblock print, who gave the boy the artist name 'Yoshitoshi' as a mark of lineage within the Utagawa School. From Kuniyoshi, Yoshitoshi absorbed the full tradition of ukiyo-e — th...