Utagawa Kuniteru II (1830–1874)

This triptych depicts a train at the old Shimbashi Station with both Japanese and foreign people in the foreground. During the Edo period the area of Shiodome in Tokyo housed the local residences of various daimyo [feudal lords]. However following the Meiji Restoration during the 1860s, the new Imperial government seized the daimyo-held land to build Shimbashi Station which served as the Tokyo terminus of the first railway in Japan, the Tokaido Main Line, until it was extended to Tokyo Station in 1914 and the passenger terminal at Shiodome was closed. Karasumori Station on the Yamanote Line was then renamed Shimbashi station which is how it remains today.

For another impression in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number JP3347, go to https://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/55512

For another impression in the Tokyo National Museum, number 91222040, go to https://digitalmuseum.rekibun.or.jp/app/collection/detail?ss=01&b1=1000200&b2=2000220&id=0191222040