Yokohama; Prints from Nineteenth-Century Japan by Yonemura, Ann - 1990

Washington DC: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery / Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990. 198p., full monty art-book format, profuse color illustrations each captioned at length amid a running text. Hardbound in 13x9 inch openweave green cloth boards and dust jacket, dj a fine color wraparound. Book itself entirely sound and clean; at p.107 find a small pictorial erratum slip supplying an accidently omitted plate. Jacket has an unobtrusive crease to lower front corner. Very good to near-fine. In the course of showing foreigners at work and play the various artists showed the Yokohama area in gorgeous maps and "aerial" views of landscapes. Laid in find two pretty brochures, a Smithsonian promotional pamphlet and a folded leaf inviting one to an exhibition at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum. In 1859 Yokohama, "a small rural village," was opened to trade and became a "thriving international port" with foreigners from five European nations busy busy, bringing their novel customs, inventions, women, sailors. "Japanese publishers.. satisfied the public's curiosity by producing woodblock prints depicting the new foreign residents: tens of thousands of the colorful images were dispersed within the first two years ..