Art & Horseyculture: An American Beauty – and her Horse – in Yokohama, 1860

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Here’s your thing of joy for today: the smirk on this rather saucy horse as he carries an American lady sidesaddle through nineteenth-century Japan, as viewed by artist Yoshitori Utagawa in 1860. Japanese women did not ride sidesaddle, so this is an interesting public performance of Western femininity as interpreted by a local. Also, one hell of a bonnet.
It’s from the US Library of Congress, and more information can be found here.

Published by Susanna Forrest

Writer Amazons of Paris, The Age of the Horse and If Wishes Were Horses.

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