Featured artwork includes ten works by Hokusai, including “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” from the series “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji,” and 17 works by Hiroshige, known for his traditional woodblock prints, along with works by 15 of their contemporaries. The collection includes hand-painted hanging scrolls in paper and silk as well as elegant and detailed multi-colored woodblock prints as beautiful as brocade as their name nishiki-e indicates. The selection is enriched by the presentation of original and refined art and craft objects in dialogue with the paintings and prints that often are representing them and their common use.

The opulent works are quintessential representations of the Japanese art form known as “Ukiyo-e,” or “floating world images,” in which artists depict an idealized world of grandeur, class, wit, style, and pleasure, created during a period when Japan was limiting international relationships to one port that is Nagasaki, offering a unique point of view. The scrolls, prints and fans created during this time brought international notoriety to Japan giving birth to the Japanism trend. When Japan did open its borders, these pieces fascinated and influenced the world’s artists including impressionists such as Monet and Degas and later Van Gogh.