'At Yokohama' (Japan) RMG PT2059

'At Yokohama' [Japan]
No. 9 of 51 (PAJ2051 - PAJ2101): inscribed by the artist in the lower right corner of the drawing 'Yokohama' with the monogram signature 'JHB' and date '7/68'; and on the album page, as title. Yokohama lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, forming a vast conurbation with it, extending along the southern coastal plain of central Kyushu. It began to develop as one of Japan's major port cities from 1853-54 when American intervention forced the Japanese shogunate to begin opening up to the world.
Butt's view does not show the harbour but appears to be from high ground, probably with his back to the sea, looking west over what is likely to be the Kanagawa river toward Mount Fuji, further to the west. Today the Kanagawa is the formal boundary between the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, but the area Butt shows as far as the foothills around Fuji is entirely urban. According to Butt's superior, James Gambier, first lieutenant of the 'Sylvia', 'Yokohama was our headquarters during our stay in Japan, and here we frequently remained for many weeks at a time' ('Links in my Life on Land and Sea' [1906], p. 377) and PAJ2089 and PAJ2092 are also views of it made while they were there.

At Yokohama