Tinted lithograph print depicting Commodore Matthew Perry's expedition to Japan reaching the port of Kurihama (written on the print as Gorahama), with Japanese spectators watching from the beach and from boats with parasols and flags. Two of the expedition’s ships can be seen in the distance. Inscription: ‘First Landing at Gorahama / W. Heine / Js. Queen del. / P. S. Duval & Co. Phil[adelphia].’

The print is based on a drawing by James Queen (1820/1–1886), after an on-the-spot sketch by Peter Bernhard Wilhelm Heine, better known as William Heine (1827–1885). A German-American world traveller, writer and artist, Heine was the official artist on Commodore Matthew Perry’s expedition to Japan in 1852. Queen was a Philadelphia artist, lithographer, and chromolithographer. He worked with the publisher P. S. Duval for most of his career. This print was published as an illustration in the official voyage publication, Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan (Washington: Beverley Tucker, 1856), opposite page 256.

Perry’s expedition embarked for Japan with the intention of securing a trade treaty through threats and displays of US naval power. This print shows the expedition’s first landing on Japanese soil at Kurihama (now part of the city of Yokosuka) on 14 July 1853. Perry came ashore to deliver a letter from President Millard Fillmore to the Emperor of Japan requesting an end to Japan's foreign seclusion policy, which had been in place since 1639. In 1854, the Convention of Kanagawa was signed under threat of force, with Japan reluctantly agreeing to protect stranded seamen and open two ports for refuelling of American ships. It was not a trade agreement but did contain a most-favoured-nation clause, which provided an opening for a future trade contract between Japan and the United States.