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Vivid Japanese lithograph of the 2nd Army storming Lüshun, 1894
This rare color lithograph illustrates the nocturnal street fight during Japan’s first capture of Lüshun (Port Arthur) on 21 November 1894.
At the right a tight Japanese firing line advances beneath a kyokujitsu-ki regimental flag, rifles sparking; at left Qing defenders tumble from the wall or plunge into a moat as flames streak across the sky, a crescent moon glowing through smoke. Bright chrome-yellow and orange fire, sulfurous green night, and lithographic hatching give the sheet its urgent, almost cinematic force.
Marginal imprints (blurred but legible) appear to place printing in Tokyo, October Meiji 27 (1894), naming Kyōdō studio at Shinsaibashi. The caption’s reference to the Second Army matches the actual order of battle: Oku Yasukata’s corps led the 1894 advance through the Liaodong Peninsula before larger powers forced Japan to relinquish the port. The print thus documents both the military feat and the brief moment when Japan seemed poised to anchor itself permanently in Manchuria.
Surviving examples with full borders, bright color, and intact date lines are scarce; most were thumb-tacked, smoked, and discarded after the next headline. For historians the sheet is a primary source on Meiji mass-media propaganda; for collectors it offers a well-preserved, arrestingly graphic link between the First Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars.
