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Hiroshige | Annaka, The Sixty-Nine Stations of the Kisokaido Road

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歌川広重 Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858)

木曾街道六十九次之内 案中
Annaka, from the series The Sixty-Nine Stations of the Kisokaido Road

1835-38

木版画 | 横绘大判 | 24cm x 36.6cm
Woodblock-print | Oban Yoko-e | 24cm x 36.6cm

非常早期版本和版次；颜色鲜艳；整体品相完好；边缘经修剪
Very early edition and impression; rich color; minor trimming to margin.

This example is plate no. 154 from “Hiroshige Nature and the City: Prints from the Alan Medaugh Collection.” (Ludion, 2023).

$6,800

We are roughly a quarter of our way from Edo to Kyoto along the Kisokaido mountain highway. The flat plains outside Edo will soon give way to the mountainous Kiso Valley for which the highway was named. We’ve been on the road for several days, and the walking is getting tougher – there always seems to be more uphill than downhill.

In this view of the town of Annaka, Hiroshige takes outside the town itself to the pass from Takasagi, a few miles away. We see a retinue of samurai climbing the slope, with three rest houses on the left, and two above on the right. It is early spring, with a chill in the air, and the plum trees are just coming into bloom. The crest of the hill is just within sight. But there is surely another hill beyond.

According to the scholar Sebastian Izzard, Annaka was the site of a famous castle built by Annaka Tadamasa that was eventually destroyed by the even more famous warlord Takeda Shingen in 1614. But as he often did, Hiroshige focuses not on a storied view, but rather on a lesser known, out-of-the-way site for his composition.

This joint series with Keisai Eisen followed the success of Hiroshige’s “53 Stations of the Tokaido,” also published by Hoeidō, which created a ravenous marked for landscapes. In the end, Eisen completed 24 of the designs, mostly near the beginning, while Hiroshige completed 46.

Izzard notes that in this early example, the printers skillfully used bokashi to give roundness to the hills. Also, there is lovely bokashi in the thatched roof of the first rest house to the right, which disappears in later printings.

Interested in purchasing?
Please contact us.

歌川広重 Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858)

木曾街道六十九次之内 案中
Annaka, from the series The Sixty-Nine Stations of the Kisokaido Road

1835-38

木版画 | 横绘大判 | 24cm x 36.6cm
Woodblock-print | Oban Yoko-e | 24cm x 36.6cm

非常早期版本和版次；颜色鲜艳；整体品相完好；边缘经修剪
Very early edition and impression; rich color; minor trimming to margin.

This example is plate no. 154 from “Hiroshige Nature and the City: Prints from the Alan Medaugh Collection.” (Ludion, 2023).

$6,800

We are roughly a quarter of our way from Edo to Kyoto along the Kisokaido mountain highway. The flat plains outside Edo will soon give way to the mountainous Kiso Valley for which the highway was named. We’ve been on the road for several days, and the walking is getting tougher – there always seems to be more uphill than downhill.

In this view of the town of Annaka, Hiroshige takes outside the town itself to the pass from Takasagi, a few miles away. We see a retinue of samurai climbing the slope, with three rest houses on the left, and two above on the right. It is early spring, with a chill in the air, and the plum trees are just coming into bloom. The crest of the hill is just within sight. But there is surely another hill beyond.

According to the scholar Sebastian Izzard, Annaka was the site of a famous castle built by Annaka Tadamasa that was eventually destroyed by the even more famous warlord Takeda Shingen in 1614. But as he often did, Hiroshige focuses not on a storied view, but rather on a lesser known, out-of-the-way site for his composition.

This joint series with Keisai Eisen followed the success of Hiroshige’s “53 Stations of the Tokaido,” also published by Hoeidō, which created a ravenous marked for landscapes. In the end, Eisen completed 24 of the designs, mostly near the beginning, while Hiroshige completed 46.

Izzard notes that in this early example, the printers skillfully used bokashi to give roundness to the hills. Also, there is lovely bokashi in the thatched roof of the first rest house to the right, which disappears in later printings.

Interested in purchasing?
Please contact us.

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858)

Ando Hiroshige (1897-1858) revolutionized the art of landscape prints during the Edo era, building on the success of his senior, Hokusai, but taking a more poetic and naturalist approach to portraying the beauty of Japan.

The son of a low-level Samurai assigned to the fire brigade in Edo, Hiroshige became a student of the Utagawa school as a young man. His first prints focused on beautiful women (bijin), and views of Edo. But in 1833 he began work on his most famous early work, his first series depicting the Tokaido, the "Great Sea Road" between Edo and Tokyo.

Today there is some controversy about this series. Initially, it was believed that Hiroshige had travelled the route along with a local lord (Daimyo) who was making a gift of horses to the Emperor. But more recent scholarship suggests Hiroshige never travelled the road himself, at least not the entire way, and made his designs using published guidebooks.

Nonetheless, the prints were wonderful and revolutionary. They embraced the seasons with a gentle lyricism missing from Hokusai's striking but stylized depictions. In Hiroshige's work, nature is sacred -- but it is always mixed with humanity, with travelers or little inns or bridges. There is a magical harmony between man and the elements.

His depiction of the seasons and weather is especially evocative. Snow blankets some views with a hushed silence, while rain streaks down furiously in others. In some prints natured is agitated; in others, calm prevails. Produced in a horizontal oban yoko-e format, the series was a smash hit.

The Tokaido series made Hiroshige famous, and he became incredible prolific. In the 1840s he produced many strong designs, but many mediocre ones, too, including several subsequent Tokaido series of varying quality.

In 1853, however, he made a big step. He turned his landscapes sideways, embracing a bold vertical oban tate-e format. This gave his designs new energy and a modern feel. The first of these was Famous Views of the Sixty-Odd Provinces. From them on, most of his most noted series were executed in this format.

He saved his greatest for his last. In 1856 he began work on 100 Famous Views of Edo, which many consider his most exceptional work. Here his home city was portrayed with energy and passion, and in these 119 designs he created an incredible record of a vanished place. In addition to the striking vertical format, he developed exciting new compositions, often juxtaposing a strong foreground element with a distant background.

Among the many famous images in this series are Squall at Ohashi and the Plum Garden in Komeido. Both of these were copied by Vincent Van Gogh, a great admirer of Hiroshige. Thus, the great Japanese artist had a profound effect on Western art.

Alas, his beloved Edo ended his life. Hiroshige was claimed by a cholera epidemic that swept the city in 1958. His pupil Shigenobu, who took the name Hiroshige II, completed The Famous Views of Edo.