Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858)
A bird's eye-view of Toyama bay, surrounded by mountain ranges.
The title cartouche of the series is in the shape of a sumo referee’s fan (gumbai or gunbai).
Title: Etchû Kokokufu (or Furukokufu) Minato (The port of the former provincial capital)
Series: Sankai mitate zumô (Sumo wrestling matches between mountains and seas)
Signature: Hiroshige ga
Publisher: Yamadaya Shôjirô (Yamashô, Kinkyôdô), Edo
Date: 1858, 8th month
Original Japanese colour woodblock print. Size: Horizontal Ôban, 22 x 34.2 cm (image)
Very nice impression and colours, from the first edition of the series published by Yamadaya and with the early two-coloured cartouche. Good margins, unbacked, vertical centrefold, as often. Symmetrical wormholes in top and bottom margins on both sides of centrefold, backed from verso (in bottom minimally affecting the image). Overall nice, very attractive condition. Rare.
This beautiful landscape series, consisting of views of ten sea ports and ten mountains of Japan, is Hiroshige’s last oeuvre. Surprisingly he returns with these landscapes to the horizontal landscape format of his early work.
Cf. Chazen Museum of Art, no. 1980.1447; Art Institute of Chicago, 1968.346 (edition as here); MFA Boston, Spaulding Coll., no. 21.8961; British Museum, no. 1868,0722 (both red cartouche). The title is occasionally read and translated differently.
sold