During the mid-1850s, American diplomatic and military pressure led Japan to enter into new trade agreements with the United States and Europe, ending a prolonged period of isolationism. As travel opened up, artists in Japan—much like their American and European counterparts—sought to meet new popular demand for exotic scenes of foreign life.

Created in Japan by the printmaker Yoshitora, this triptych portrays an 1860 balloon launch held in Philadelphia for a visiting delegation of Japanese officials. Yoshitora had never visited the United States, so he composed the scene using imagery from books and periodicals. Hoping to create a scene that would look suitably “Western” to his Japanese audience, he took certain liberties with his source material: The architectural facade in the lower right cannot be found in Philadelphia as Yoshitora copied it from an Illustrated London News article on British-colonial India.

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023).