Hiroshige — One Hundred Famous Views of Edo
Hiroshige's last and greatest series: the city of Edo in rain, blossom, iris and snow.
5 prints · printed to order on heavyweight matte paper · framed or unframed
The series
Utagawa Hiroshige designed the One Hundred Famous Views of Edo between 1856 and 1858, the last years of his life, and the publisher Uoya Eikichi issued them in the upright ōban format that lets the compositions plunge from a foreground branch or bridge-rail down to the city far below. There are in fact 119 prints. Van Gogh copied two of them in oil in 1887, the Plum Garden and the Sudden Shower, and the series did more than any other to shape what Europe understood by Japanese art.
The prints here
Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and Atake; Plum Garden at Kameido; Horikiri Iris Garden; Moon Pine at Ueno; and Fukagawa Susaki and Jūmantsubo, the eagle over the snow.
Hanging the set
These are upright prints and pair naturally: two or three at 16×24 along a hallway, or one large at 24×36 in a bedroom. The Plum Garden's red sky and the Sudden Shower's blue river are the usual pairing.