見立多以尽 - 洋行がしたい|Collection of Desires, Wish for Foreign Travel (Mitate Tai zukushi-yōkō ga shitai)

Executed as a nishiki-e woodblock print, the work employs ink and color on paper. The technique relies on flat color areas with fine linear patterns, defining forms through outline and color blocks rather than modeling or shadow. The palette is composed of muted greens, purples, browns, and reds. The background transitions from a pale tone at the top to green at the bottom. A wooden chair back is partially visible behind the woman, introducing a Western domestic element into the traditional ukiyo-e aesthetic. This blending of classical Japanese subject matter with Western elements aligns with Yoshitoshi's broader incorporation of Western shading techniques and psychological depth into his later works.

Created in January 1878, the print dates to the period following Yoshitoshi's recovery from a severe depression and breakdown in 1872, during a phase of renewed ambition that also produced his series Mirror of Famous Generals of Great Japan. The print later entered the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art through the bequest of William S. Lieberman in 2005, receiving the accession number 2007.49.315. It resides in the museum's Asian Art department.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi was born in the Shimbashi district of Edo in 1839 and apprenticed at age eleven to Utagawa Kuniyoshi, who gave him the artist name Yoshitoshi. From Kuniyoshi, he absorbed the full ukiyo-e tradition even as the art form faced pressure from Western imports and photography following the Meiji Restoration of 1868. His career spanned the turbulent end of the Edo period into the modernizing Meiji era. After early notoriety for graphic depictions of violence in the Twenty-Eight Famous Murders with Verse from 1866 to 1869, his later works, such as One Hundred Aspects of the Moon and New Forms of Thirty-Six Ghosts, blended classical Japanese subjects with Western techniques. He is widely recognized as the last great master of ukiyo-e, continuing to produce prints as Western illustration and photography eclipsed traditional methods until his death in Tokyo in 1892 at age 53.

Largely overlooked for decades after his death in 1892, Yoshitoshi's reputation underwent a significant revival beginning in the 1970s. He is now celebrated internationally as the artist who gave the ukiyo-e tradition one final generation of creative life. Works like Collection of Desires, Wish for Foreign Travel document the cultural absorption of Western influences during the Meiji period, a theme that resonated deeply as Japan navigated modernization. Today, the print is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Open Access program, allowing unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use of its data and public domain images by researchers and creators worldwide.