...as it sails past Uraga, the site of Commodore Perry’s 1853 landing.

Sadahide The Observer:
Japanese Steamship

This modern steamship proudly flies a Japanese flag...  

Ten years after Commodore Perry’s black ships burst into Japanese history...

The artist Sadahide, who displayed so much enthusiasm toward Western customs in Yokohama...

...expressed his pride in Japan’s mastery of new technology in his 1863 print.

The all-Japanese crew is dressed in kimono and armed with the swords of samurai.

...portrays the state where the first Japanese embassy to the U.S. landed in March 1860.  

...a modern Japanese ship glides past Uraga, framing Mount Fuji between its mast and smokestack.

Sadahide’s imaginary view of California...

Prints are gifts of Ambassador William and Florence Leonhart, reproduced courtesy
of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC.

“Yokohama Boomtown” Massachusetts Institute of Technology © 2008 Visualizing Cultures
A Project of Professors John W. Dower and Shigeru Miyagawa

Based on the catalogue of the 1990 exhibition at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery,
Smithsonian Institution, Yokohama: Prints from 19th-Century Japan,
by Ann Yonemura. © 1990 Smithsonian Institution

On viewing images from the historical record: click here.

Design and production by Ellen Sebring, Scott Shunk, and Andrew Burstein