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Utagawa Hiroshige
1797 - 1858
Ushimachi in the Takanawa district - 1857
Woodblock print,
nishiki-e
Vertical ôban, 335 x 224 mm
Signed: Hiroshige ga
Publisher: UoyaEikichi
Censorship: Aratame
Date seal: Snake 4 (1857)
Series: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, Autumn, no. 81
Meisho Edo hyakkei
Fine impression, very good colour and condition.
With nice woodgrain and elegant bokashi in the sky and in the sea.
Here the view is taken just outside of the Takanawa Gate which marked the southern entrance to Edo. Cast-off objects litter the road: the watermelon rinds provide a sense of the season and the discarded straw sandal evokes a long journey that has finally ended here.
The huge section of an oxcart dominates the composition on the right and reminds us the popular name of the place: Ushimachi which means Oxtown. In the distance, the delicate rainbow arching through the sky over Edo Bay gives a sense of brightness and elegance.
For other fine impressions of this view see at the British Museum accession numbers
1906,1220,0.714 and
1948,0410,0.77, and at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston the number
11.35824.
References:
Andrew Stevens,
The Edward Burr Van Vleck Collection of Japanese Prints, Madison, Wisconsin, 1990, no. 81;
H. D. Smith II – A. G. Poster,
Hiroshige: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, New York, 2000, no. 81.
Comments on: Utagawa Hiroshige
Born in Edo in 1797, Hiroshige whilst still a teenager, was allowed to work in the studio of Utagawa Toyohiro, an artist with a preference for classical and landscape subjects. He studied also Nanga painting under the artist Ooka Umpo. In the 1812 he adopted the name Hiroshige. The first prints to be published under this name were images of beautiful women, a few surimono and landscapes in small format. In 1831 Hiroshige designed a successful series of Sights of Edo. In 1832 he accompanied the annual procession from Edo to the emperor in Kyoto along the Tokaido. During the journey, he sketched the scenes which he later put into the fifty-five prints which made up the celebrated series of views of the fifty-three post stations on the route. The series was revolutionary, the scenes had a naturalness and sense of immediacy that provoked instant popular appeal. This established Hiroshige as the painter of Tokaido scenes and, subsequently, he produced some thirty series on the same theme. Many highly successful landscape series would follow such as the Sixty-nine Stages on the Kiso Highway, the One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, the Thirty six Views of Mount Fuji. In his declining years, in addition to landscapes, he created an unique style in depicting birds and flowers.
Valore dai mille ai duemila euro. Pagata 20 €.
Lory, l'avevi vista?

(NB, presa immagine da internet; era vicina all'ingresso ...)