Hiroshige 広重: View to the North from Asukayama 飛鳥山北の眺望

Artist: Utagawa Hiroshige 広重 (1797-1858)
Title: View to the North from Asukayama 飛鳥山北の眺望

Series: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo 名所江戸百景 Meisho Edo Hyakkei
Date: 1856

Peaceful yet lively cherry blossom-viewing scene, complete with visitors of many ages enjoying the scenery from this bluff overlooking rice paddies, with Mount Tsukuba gently rising in the distance. Visitors have spread out picnic blankets, and women walk along the scene, some with umbrellas, wielded against the sun. We see two men, perhaps a little drunk, dancing with delight with their fans aloft; two passersby turn to look at them. In the foreground we see the soft pink cherry blossoms, and we see more peeking up from the other side of  the bluff. These cherry blossoms were planted in 1721 by the shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune to give the townspeople a public place to enjoy their beauty; it is still a park today, Asukayama. The Brooklyn Museum just concluded a show of this series, which they call one of the museum’s “greatest treasures’. 

Condition: Excellent color and condition. Very good impression. Light discoloration in lower margin, barely noticeable (lighter than in photo).  Dimensions: ôban (36.4 x 24.7 cm)
Publisher: Uoya Eikichi
Literature: Henry Smith II: “Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo”, plate 17. Andreas Marks, “Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo: The Definitive Collector’s Edition” (Tuttle, 2024), number 17, page 55.  See the Art Institute of Chicago, Brooklyn Museum, LACMA, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Chazen Museum. Signature: Hiroshige ga

SKU: HIR559