Utagawa Hiroshige I
ca. 1831
Donated by the Homma family
Utagawa Hiroshige made a name for himself with his landscape woodblock print series “Famous Places in the Eastern Capital”, of which this is an entry. His symbolic crimson clouds, colored in red, and his vivid indigo blue seascape make this a striking work. He has drawn the sails on the fishing vessels exceptionally large, allowing us to see the fishing village of Shibaura from behind those sails. In the Edo period, Shibaura was an area blessed with an abundance of fish.
Utagawa Hiroshige I (1797-1858) was an ukiyo-e artist of the late Edo period. In his early years he worked on paintings of beautiful women and warrior and actor portraits, establishing his standing as a landscape artist in 1833 with the release of his Hōeidō edition of the “Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō” series.