Good antique condition overall. The print shows creasing from having been folded for more than a century, along with general age-related darkening of the paper. There are no insect holes or significant stains. The image remains clear and visually engaging. Presented in a 32 x 23 cm frame for preservation and display.
This original Meiji-period woodblock print was designed in 1893 (Meiji 26) by Utagawa Kunisada III, signed Kōchōrō hitsu (香朝楼筆), one of the artist's principal signatures.
Titled Yoha Susumu Denwa Sugoroku (世進電話双六), or Progress of the World Telephone Sugoroku Game, the print formed part of a larger educational board game designed during Japan's rapid modernization in the late nineteenth century. Such kaika-e ("enlightenment pictures") celebrated new technologies, social reforms, and Western innovations that transformed Japanese society during the Meiji era.
The composition features a series of portrait medallions depicting representative figures of modern Japan, including military officers in Western-style uniforms, fashionable women, and citizens interacting with newly introduced technologies. At the center is the telephone network itself, symbolizing one of the most revolutionary communications advances of the period.
Sugoroku board games served both as entertainment and education, teaching players about contemporary society, technological progress, and the changing social order. Prints such as this offer a fascinating snapshot of how ordinary Japanese people encountered and understood modernization during the Meiji period.
Examples of this design are preserved in major institutional collections, including the National Museum of Ethnology, reflecting its importance as a document of Japan's technological and cultural transformation.
A historically significant Meiji-era print combining popular entertainment, educational design, and the excitement surrounding the introduction of modern communications technology in Japan.
