Beschreibung:

Lot details By Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), signed Hiroshige ga Japan, late 19th century edition Color woodblock print on paper. Vertical Oban. Titled Mii bansho (Evening Bell at Mii-dera Temple), from the series Omi hakkei (Eight Views of Omi) of 1857. Highly effective composition looking west, capturing the early evening at Mii-Dera temple built on a hillside (left) and Mt. Hiei (right). Hints of amber on the water capture the calm and serene time before the evening sets in. Mounted at the upper margin to a passepartout. Inscription (poem): Omou sono akatsuki chigiru hajime zo to matsu kiku Mii no iriai no kane Condition: Good impression and colors; very minor water stains on the top-left corner of the margin. Material loss along the edges with some creasing, folds, and cuts. Paper slightly browned. Provenance: Austrian private collection, acquired in the 1990s at Galerie Zacke, Vienna. Old Galerie Zacke label on the verso. Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 – 1858) Utagawa Hiroshige (also referred to as Ando Hiroshige) is recognized as one of the last great masters of the ukiyo-e (“pictures of the floating world”) woodblock printing tradition. His style can be characterized in the genre of landscape print, innovated by his early contemporary Hokusai (1760-1849). Hiroshige can be attributed to havng created over 5,000 prints of everyday life and landscape in Edo-period Japan. Inspired by Katsushika Hokusai’s popular Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, Hiroshige took a softer, less formal approach with his Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido (1833–34), completed after a trip he made between Edo and Kyoto, which is acclaimed to be perhaps his finest achievement. He made numerous other journeys within Japan and issued a series of such prints, expressing in great detail the poetic sensibility inherent in the climate and topography of Japan and its people. Hiroshige’s prolific output was somewhat due to his being paid very little per series. Still, this did not deter him, as he receded to Buddhist monkhood in 1856 to complete his brilliant and lasting One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (1856–58). He died in 1858, 10 years before Monet, Van Gogh, and a lot of Impressionist painters became eager collectors of Japanese art. Dimensions: Image size 39.5 x 27 cm