Just as the early influx of Western visitors in Yokohama consumed artists’ visual imaginations, so too did the rapid transformation of Tokyo’s cityscape. In his Thirty-Six Views of Modern Tokyo, Utagawa Hiroshige III, a talented pupil of Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858), provides glimpses of the city during this period of change.

This print from the series describes a steam-powered paddleboat off the shore of Shinagawa, near Tokyo. Whereas Yokohama had been the focus of earlier prints, aptly named yokohama-e, this image and others like it were part of a trend in color woodcut design that focused on Tokyo. Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847–1915) designed a print of this exact same subject five years later in 1879, suggesting that the image remained popular for some time.