Page 178 - 2021 March 16th Japanese and Korean Art, Christie's New York City

JAPANESE PRINTS FROM AN IMPORTANT EUROPEAN COLLECTION
172 UTAGAWA HIROSHIGE (1797-1858)

Cockerel in morning snow

Woodblock print, signed Hiroshige gaand
sealed Ichiryusai, published mid-1830s
Chutanzaku: 14¡ x 4æ in. (36.5 x 12.1 cm.)

$1,500-2,500

The kyoka poem has been read and translated as:
Kinuginu no/ hanashi mo imada/ tsumoranu ni/ tokekau
to naku/ naku yuki no tori, "The hour of parting/ with
all its deep feelings/ in drifts about them/ they hear
the melting tones/ of the cockerel in the snow". See
Cynthea J. Bogel and Israel Goldman, Hiroshige Birds
and Flowers, (New York, 1988), cat. no. 57.

VARIOUS PROPERTIES
173 UTAGAWA HIROSHIGE (1797-1858)

Kanbara yoru no yuki (Evening Three figures trudge through falling snow in the village of
snow at Kanbara) Kanbara, Shizuoka Prefecture. In fact Hiroshige visited
Kambara during late summer or early autumn and
Woodblock print, from the series Tokaido therefore this scene is imagined. Considered amongst
gojusan tsugi no uchi(Fifty-three stations of his finest snowscenes, in the earliest impressions of this
the Tokaido), signed Hiroshige ga, published by design (as here), the leg of the far right figure has a flaw
Takenouchi Magohachi (Hoeido), circa 1834 whereby the block-cutter mistakenly did not cut away
Horizonal oban: 9Ω x 14º in. (24.1 x 36.5 cm.) all the wood between the lines of the legs. In these early
impressions the black bokashiusually descends from
$25,000-30,000
the top of the design.