Masters of the Woodblock: Important Japanese Prints
Masters of the Woodblock: Important Japanese Prints
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) | Seba | Edo period, 19th century
Lot Closed
July 21, 01:23 PM GMT
Estimate
15,000 - 20,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858)
Seba
Edo period, 19th century
woodblock print, from the series The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaido (Kisokaido rokujukyu tsugi no uchi), signed Hiroshige ga (Pictured by Hiroshige), sealed Ichiryusai, published by Iseya Rihei (Kinjudo), circa 1835-38
Horizontal oban: 23.4 x 36.4 cm., 9¼ x 14⅜ in.
A harvest moon lingers over the Narai River around the plains of Seba. A bargeman and a raftsman drift along the waters, the former appearing to gaze up momentarily at the full moon. As they approach the town of Seba before nightfall, tall reeds appear still on the verdant banks and the fronds of willow trees hang over the lonely landscape. To the distance, thatched dwellings and the silhouettes of trees populate the horizon line.
The sky employs evocative colouration in the printing: to the left-hand side the dark blue is representative of the evening sky, while the rosy-orange to the right suggests the final light of sunset. The ensuing night is atmospherically rendered through the black bokashi [gradation] strip to the top, which falls subtly through the clouds above the sparsely foliated willows. This scene of transition between evening and night, as well as the solitary figures placed in an open landscape, connotes a sense of classicism more often felt in nanga [lit. Southern style painting].
It was told that Seba [lit. washing the horse] was the area where the general Minamoto no Yoshinaka (1145-1184) washed his horse, presumably when he raised an army in Shinano Province against the rival Taira clan.
Seba is known in many variant impressions: in most, as here, the men's jackets are printed in blue and the black bokashi strip of the sky extends to the top of the willows. Lighter versions are also extant: in one known variation, the men wear brown jackets and the dusk sky is rendered by a grey bokashi strip along the top edge. The sky below it is blue with red further down indicating the setting sun. Another has the men in blue and the sky printed in grey to the uppermost part. A later state of the print has the block with the trees to the horizon omitted and the water printed entirely in blue without the horizontal white lines to the distance.
For further discussion on the various impressions of this print, see Matthi Forrer, Hiroshige: Prints and Drawings, (London, 1997), no. 38.
For another impression of the same print in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The MET), accession number JP1546, go to: