Maggs Bros.

An impressively long panorama of Ezo-chi (present-day Hokkaido) showing the modern industrialisation of the island and treatment of its indigenous Ainu people.

Formerly known as Ezo-chi, the island only became formally part of Japan in 1869. It was renamed Hokkaido, colonised, modernised, and got the status of a ‘new frontier’ whose resources contributed to the wealth and status of Japan as a whole. Images like these became known as ‘Enlightenment Pictures’ (kaika-e), highlighting the rapid progress and industrial style development in Hokkaido.

Starting from the right, the first print shows a group of Ainu paying homage to a group of Japanese military officers seated in front of the Meiji Emperor and his entourage on horseback. The group are poised high on a large rocky outcrop and the scene clearly stands for the assertion of Japanese hegemony over Hokkaido and the native population. The Emperor had visited Hokkaido in 1881 and inspected the thriving fishing industry. Herring was chiefly used as agricultural fertiliser and was extremely important for Japan’s economy as a whole. The second and third plates show a fleet of rowing boats catching large amounts of herring in front of a rising sun. The fish is sorted on the shore. The following four plates describe the various methods of boiling, drying, processing and packing the herring with Yotei-yama in the background. The last three plates document the transfer by rowing boats of the packaged fish to a large black steamer for transportation to Honshu.

This print is rare and being composed of ten prints, it is also an unusually large panorama. Only one set in OCLC.