Kunisada: Beauty and View of Kanbara from Tokaido series (Sold)

Artist: Utagawa Kunisada (1786-1865)
Title: Beauty and Kanbara from the Tokaido Road Series
Series: Fifty-three Stations of the Tôkaidô Road (Tokaido gojusan tsugi no uchi)
Date: ca. 1838

A beauty atop an ox looks charmingly to the scene of Kanbara in the snow that is behind her. Number 39 in this interesting chuban series of the Tokaido Road. The background is directly lifted from Hiroshige’s iconic design of Kanbara from the Hoeidô Tokaidô, which was published in the early 1830s. The beauty and the ox are almost superimposed on the scene; they seem to be connected by a cloud of imagination. The publishers were probably trying to do some cross-promotion of their artists and series.

Condition: Very good impression, color and condition.
Dimensions: chûban 25 x 18.7 cm
Publisher: Sanoya Kihei
Literature: Sebastian Izzard, Kunisada's World, 1993, p. 30, fig. 12. Andreas Marks, Kunisada's Tokaido: Riddles in Japanese Woodblock Prints, 2013, p. 66, cat. no. T24-16, and pp. 76-83 (on series). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (mfa.org), from the Bigelow Collection, accession nos. 11.21029, 11.22289, 11.35864 and 2009.4991.48.
Signature: Kôchôrô Kunisada ga

SKU: KUC033S