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A
monumental ukiyo-e design !
Description:
Original
antique Japanese color woodblock by Utagawa
Hiroshige (1797-1858).
Landscape print. Date: 9/1857.
Signed: Ando
Hiroshige ga.
Series: ‘One Hundred Famous Views of
Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei).‘
Title: ‘No.118: Foxfires on New Year’s Eve at
the Shozoku Hackberry Tree (No.118: Oji Shozoku
enoki Omisoka kitsunebi).‘
Publisher:
Uo-ei. Oban tate-e size: 14 1/4” x 9
2/3” inches. Good impression, fine color and near
fine condition.
Some minute (restored) pinholes otherwise
magnificent state.
“At the large old enoki
(hackberry) tree on New Year’s Eve, all the foxes
of the eight Kanto provinces are gathering to honor
the headquarters of the Inari cult in eastern Japan
(Kantô). They would change their dress before
entering the shrine and serve as messengers of the
god of the rice field. They would breathe a number
of foxfires (kitsunebi), so that farmers
could foresee the upcoming rice harvest, either by
the shadows cast by the flames or by their numbers.
In English the literal translation of kitsunebi is
‘foxfire’ and both words are used to describe
strange lights at night, in this case the burning of
swamp gases, and both were attributed to the fox.”
This extraordinary print is
the only design in the series featuring a
mythological subject and was published shortly
before Hiroshige’s death. It is generally
considered among the ‘best three’ (together with
‘Sudden Shower’ and ‘Plum Garden’ )
of the ‘100 Views of Edo’-series.
Hiroshige’s magnificent use of different shades of
blue (he was nicknamed ‘Blue Hiroshige’)
in the sky and the touches of green on the pines all
add to the mysterious atmosphere.
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Other impressions of this
masterpiece are in the collections of countless
museums such as The Met Museum,
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The Honolulu
Museum of Art, Edo Tokyo Museum, The Minneapolis
Institute of Art, Harvard Art Museum,
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The Tokyo
National Museum, The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of
Fine Arts (Boston), The
British Museum,
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The Museum of
Wisconsin-Madison...etc.
>
Click
here for more info on Hiroshige’s Foxfires
design.
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