About This Print

A night view of Ginza street in the 1880s with brightly illuminated windows and gas lights.  People line the street and a horse drawn trolley and several carriages are pictured.  Numerous editions of this print exist (some using recarved blocks) with varying color schemes.  It is unknown whether this collection's print is an early or later edition.  It is likely not a first edition and I can find no other examples using this color scheme.  (See below impressions from various collections for comparisons.)

Other Printings and Editions

About The Series Tokyo Shinga Meisho Zukai

There are at least 126 (and possibly 134) prints in this series believed to have originally been published between 1884 and 1889.¹  All of the prints are in the small yotsugiri format (5 x 7 in.) A bound book containing 35 of this series' prints can be found in the Waseda University Library collection at http://www.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kotenseki/html/chi05/chi05_03859/index.html including the below diptych print of the racetrack in Ueno Park.


¹ The Tokyo Digital Museum shows 126 images from this series which are in the collection of the Tokyo Gas Museum.  See http://digitalmuseum.rekibun.or.jp/app/collection/list?sr=%90%7D%89%F0&start=0.

Print Details

IHL Catalog	#588
Title or Description	Night View of Ginza Dorii 銀座通夜景
Series	Real (True) Pictures of Famous Places of Tokyo   Tokyo shinga meisho zukai  東京真画名所図解
Artist	Inoue Yasuji (1864-1889)
Signature	not signed
Seal	not sealed
Publication Date	c. 1884-1889
Publisher	originally Fukoda Kumajirō 福田熊次郎  (The publisher for this edition of the print may or may not be Fukoda)
Impression	good
Colors	excellent
Condition	poor - trimmed to image (title would normally appear in center of bottom margin); rubbed
Genre	ukiyo-e; meisho-e
Miscellaneous
Format	yotsugiri
H x W Paper	3 7/8 x 6 1/4 in. (9.8 x 15.9 cm)
Literature
Collections This Print	Tokyo Gas Museum Yasuji-016 (variant edition); Edo Tokyo Museum 85200752 (variant edition), 94202712, 94202764; Tokyo Metropolitan Library 035-051-008 (variant edition); Chuo City Library 001701047 (variant edition)

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