1862 Sadahide View of American Ships Departing California

A magnificent Ukiyo-e woodblock triptych in the distinctive Yokohama-e style, produced in 1862 by the genre's most prolific master, Utagawa Sadahide. It portrays a group of American ships leaving the 'port of California,' almost certainly San Francisco, presumably bound for Japan. This work is especially notable as it depicts a purely foreign scene, rather than the more common illustrations of foreigners in Yokohama or elsewhere in Japan.

A Closer Look

Modifying a theme of Yokohama-e, Sadahide presents foreign ships departing for Japan rather than arriving at Yokohama. The 'port of California' referred to in the title is surely meant to be San Francisco. The title is also notable for demonstrating the early, evolving terminology used for foreign places (the phonetic transliteration '亜墨利迦州' is employed instead of the later, simpler '米國' or the kana transliteration 'アメリカ').

Sadahide is a bit too generous in his presentation of the San Francisco waterfront as an imposing row of stone structures. He was correct, however, in highlighting the excited bustle of ships, people, and animals around the port. Vessels of various sizes and methods of propulsion head out to sea. A couple of explanatory notes describe the 'rigging monkeys' on the ship at left.

Sadahide and Yokohama-e

Sadahide is most closely associated with Yokohama-e (橫濱繪), a genre of woodblock prints which he largely defined, depicting foreigners and the cultural interactions between Japan and the outside world that took place in Yokohama. Although Japan had reluctantly signed a 'Treaty of Peace and Amity' with the United States in 1854, opening the door for greater foreign presence and influence in Japan, the terms were quite vague until a subsequent treaty, the Treaty of Amity and Commerce (also known as the Harris Treaty), was signed in 1858, opening Japanese ports to foreign trade. Other foreign powers piled into Japan to sign similar treaties stipulating rights for their nationals to trade and reside in certain Japanese ports. The most important of these 'treaty ports' were Nagasaki and Yokohama, the former having been a major port for centuries, the latter much less so.

Much like Shanghai in China, Yokohama was a sort of 'blank slate' rather than a well-established port, allowing it to grow rapidly within the context of the treaty arrangements, becoming the main conduit for the exchange of people, goods, and ideas between Japan and the outside world. Artists, Sadahide chief among them, rushed to depict the new visitors, who were regarded with both curiosity and revulsion, but in either case were an object of keen interest throughout Japan.

Getting to Know Each Other

This print was produced only two years after Japan's first diplomatic embassy to the United States of America, sent in 1860. The embassy, composed of 72 men, was meant to ratify the terms of the 1858 Harris Treaty, but also served as an opportunity to acquire knowledge about the outside world and display the Shogunate's embrace of foreign technology (it travelled on the Kanrin Maru, Japan's first domestically-produced sail and screw-driven steam corvette). Its translator was Nakahama Manjirō (中濱 万次郎), who as an adolescent was shipwrecked off the coast of Japan and rescued by an American whaling ship, allowing him to learn English and making him perhaps the earliest Japanese immigrant to the United States. Accounts of the United States by Nakahama, other members of the embassy, and other early visitors, along with works translated from English, were a hot commodity in the closing years of the Edo period (1600 - 1868). Having never been to California, Sadahide's vivid prints would have been based on such descriptions, along with first-hand knowledge of American ships, clothing, and customs from his interactions in Yokohama.

Publication History and Census

This triptych of woodblock prints was produced by Utagawa Sadahide in 1862. Sadahide's signature, along with that of one Asakura (朝倉), named as head engraver, and the publisher, Etsuka (越嘉), are included on each print. This view is quite rare, only being noted among the holdings of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Kobe City Museum.