Signed: Hiroshige ga; Publisher’s seal: Shitaya Shinguro Uo’ei (Uoya Eikichi); censor’s seal: aratame; ōban, 36.3 x 24.5 cm; nishiki-e with fukibokashi and kirazuri

Print 20 from ”One Hundred Views of Famous Places in Edo“. Hiroshige designed a total of nearly 1,000 prints of places in Edo, which were collected in over 20 series. A highpoint of his Å“uvre and the culmination in his artistic dialogue with the city of his birth is found in the series Edo meisho hyakkei (“Hundred Views of Famous Places in Edo”). Reflecting its importance and the collector’s preferences, eight prints from this opus magnum can be found in the Riese Collection.

F. Tikotin, La Tour de Peilz (February 1965)
Riese Collection #170

The ferry appears in the lower-right hand side of the picture, the temple buildings are clustered in the upper right behind the cartouche. The print has the three-collared cartouche (red, white, and blue in this case) which is often, but not always an indication of an extremely fine, early impression. It has deep overprinting on the banks and centre of the river, and mica is printed on the dark shadow above the pine trees at the very top of the picture. The print is completely unfaded so the red of the cartouches is deep and intense, the yellow is bright and strong, and the warm green of the riverbanks contrasts effectively with the cold water of the river.

Reproduced in: Ingelheim catalogue, no. 139.