Snapshots of the Past

[Japanese drawing] – Historic Print

[Japanese drawing], 1750 — historic drawing
[Japanese drawing], 1750. Historic drawing from the Japanese Prints collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

Few images capture their era like this historic drawing of [Japanese drawing]. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.

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[Japanese drawing]

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This drawing pairs a drawbridge in Tokyo with foreign visitors, a combination that points to the city's transformation in the late nineteenth century. Edo, as Tokyo was known before 1868, was built around castle moats and canals crossed by bridges like the one shown here, and after Japan opened its ports to foreign trade in the 1850s, Western travelers came to see these waterways and the people who moved across them. The record credits Isoda Koryūsai, an ukiyo-e artist active from 1764 to 1788, but its date of 1750 and its 1850 to 1900 subject range do not agree, so the work's exact age is uncertain. Its value lies in showing how a traditional Japanese streetscape looked to outsiders during a period of rapid change.

Created / published1750
CreatorIsoda Koryūsai fl. 1764-1788 artist.
Medium1 drawing.
NotesForms part of: Japanese prints and drawings (Library of Congress). Forms part of the David Murray Collection.
SubjectsDrawbridges--Japan--Tokyo--1850-1900. Foreign visitors--Japan--Tokyo--1850-1900.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Japanese Fine Prints
Original scan3,616 × 5,368 px · prints to 12 × 18 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-JFP-227606

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