Beschreibung:

Lot details By Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 – 1858), signed Hiroshige ga Japan, late 19th century edition Color woodblock print on paper. Horizontal Oban. Titled Uchikawa bosetsu (Evening Snow at Uchikawa), from the series Kanazawa hakkei (Eight Views of Kanazawa) of 1835-9. Set against the snow-capped mountains of Uchikawa, the scene depicts travelers trudging through heavy snow at night. Inscription: The pine trees are so deeply covered with snow That there is no shelter under them. The evening comes and the road to the harbor Cannot be traced under the white snow. Condition: Good condition with crisp impression and vivid colors. Trimmed, with negligible material loss along top margin and curling. Provenance: Austrian private collection, acquired in the 1990s at Galerie Zacke, Vienna. Dimensions: Image size 22.5 x 35.5 cm 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 having 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. Literature comparison: A near identical but earlier print is in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession Number: JP2467.