This print shows the Tsukiji Hoterukan, Tokyo’s first Western-style hotel which opened in 1868. The hotel was designed as the keystone of an anticipated surrounding foreign settlement, but it failed to measure up to original expectations. Less than four years of being opened, the hotel was demolished by fire, but in that time was a subject of Japanese fascination with its fusion of Japanese building methods and the design influences of Western architecture as characterized by the hotel’s arched gateway and cupola which is the focus of this print.

Provenance – from an estate in Maine. Some staining and small hole in bottom margin.