Hiroshige 広重: Summer Heat on Nihonbashi Shopping Street (Nihonbashi itchome)

Artist: Utagawa Hiroshige 歌川 広重 (1797-1858)
Title: View of Nihonbashi Tori-itchome 日本橋通一丁目略図

Series: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo 名所江戸百景 (Meisho Edo Hyakkei)
Date: 1858

Summer heat on a shopping street, Edo style. We are at street level on Edo’s main street, just south of Nihonbashi, which was the bustling heart of the city and the zero-mile marker for the various Gokaido routes. We see a cluster of Sumiyoshi dancers, street performers, all huddled beneath a parasol and dressed distinctively in straw sandals, red aprons, white fans and sedge hats. Behind them is a female minstrel, an onna-dayû, carrying her shamisen and dressed in a lovely cotton kimono. Everyone is hidden beneath the sun; the only face we see is a gentleman devouring a piece of chilled yellow melon beneath his wide hat. The man behind him carries a tray of cold soba noodles, delivering from the shop with the white noren sign in the middle, Tokyoan. On the right is the shop Shirokiya, which became part of the Tokyu chain of department stores. This work is a very early edition, with strong woodgrain and the same areas of bokashi as we see in the “first” deluxe edition. The only difference between this and the deluxe edition is that the sky is blue instead of purple, and the color of the left corner half of the cartouche is blue instead of purple-brown.

Condition: Excellent impression and color. Very good condition. Some imperfections near bottom margin. Dimensions: ôban (35.8 x 24.2 cm)
Publisher: Uoya Eikichi
Literature: Henry Smith II: Hiroshige One Hundred Famous View of Edo, plate 44. Andreas Marks, “Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo: The Definitive Collector’s Edition” (Tuttle, 2024), number 44 page 109. See the Art Institute of Chicago, MFA Boston, Chazen and Honolulu Museum collections as well as the Brooklyn Museum and British Museum collections. 

Seal: Censor’s seal “Aratame” and Date seal 
Signature: Hiroshige ga

SKU: HIR575