Utagawa Yoshikazu - Foreigners Enjoying a Party at the Gankirō Tea House - 1st month, 1861 v1 - STICKER Vinyl Kiss-Cut Decal

This January 1861 woodblock print shows Western men and Japanese women gathered at a banquet inside the Gankirō Tea House, a pleasure-quarter establishment in Yokohama.

Visual Elements & Composition

The print is a triptych, and the scene runs across all three panels in a crowded, rhythmic layout. Men in caps and jackets sit at low tables beside women in patterned kimono, while servers carry trays between them and a hostess looks down from the upper gallery. Pointed arched windows and a pagoda-style pavilion frame the room. A vertical cartouche holds a mountain landscape, and the palette leans on cream, teal, black, brick red and pale blue. The inscription in the title cartouche reads 横濱港崎廓岩龜樓異人遊覽之圖, and the artist's signature 一川芳員画 sits alongside it.

Meaning & Symbolism

The print records a moment when foreign visitors had become a regular part of life in the Yokohama licensed quarter, which had opened after the 1859 treaty ports were established. Utagawa school printmakers were known for dense interior scenes of human interaction, and here that tradition documents cultural contact in real rooms, with real customs: music from the shamisen, shared drink, and the mixing of two dress codes under one roof. The cartouche landscape signals the traditional Japanese setting that holds the whole gathering.

Where the Sticker Meets the Scene

A kiss-cut sticker follows its own outline, so the chosen shape of this design becomes the edge of the piece. The triptych's arched windows and framed cartouche translate directly into a cut line, and the figures keep their silhouettes once the surrounding paper is removed. Placed on a journal, laptop or notebook, the cut shape reads as an object in its own right, turning a historical panorama into a single, self-contained image.