- Museum number
- 1906,1220,0.546
- Title
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Object: Tokaido Shinagawa Gotenyama no Fuji 東海道品川御殿山ノ不二 (Fuji from Gotenyama, at Shinagawa on the Tokaido Highway)
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Series: Fugaku sanjurokkei 冨嶽三十六景 (Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji)
- Description
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Colour woodblock oban print. View of Mt Fuji across Sagami Bay, between trunks of cherry trees dotted hills at Goten-yama above Shinagawa: Samurai and ordinary townspeople with children, picnicking and cavorting under blossoms, taking refreshment at temporary tea-stalls. 1 of 2 impressions. Inscribed, signed and sealed.
- Production date
- 1833 (probably 1833 (Keyes and Morse 2015))
- Dimensions
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Height: 25.60 centimetres
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Width: 37.10 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Clark 2001
The view of Mt Fuji is across Sagami Bay, between the trunks of cherry trees that dotted the hills at Goten-yama above Shinagawa, the first post-station on the Tokaido Highway leading south out of Edo. Cherries were said to have been transplanted to Goten-yama from distant Yoshino as early as the Kambun era (1661-73), and in Hokusai's print samurai and ordinary townspeople alike, together with their children, picnic and cavort under the blossoms, taking refreshment at temporary tea-stalls. In holiday mood, few pay attention to the view. In contrast to the previous, autumn view at the first post-station leading north out of Edo, this is a much more cheerful spring scene at the first post-station leading south. The hills of Goten-yama appear to pile up towards Fuji.
The main difference encountered in printing effects is in the sky. With impressions such as this one, where the sky is printed a uniform pale blue, the blossoms stand out clearly. In others where there is a wide band of white across the middle of the sky, however, the faint dotted pink of the flowers has often faded so as to render them all but imperceptible. A second impression in the British Museum collection (1937.7-10.0146), in inferior condition, is of this type.
References:
'Ukiyo-e taikei, vol. 13: Fugaku sanju-rokkei', Tokyo, Shueisha, 1975 (text by Kobayashi Tadashi), no. 39.
'Meihin soroimono ukiyo-e, vol. 8: Hokusai I', Tokyo, Gyosei, 1991 (text by Nagata Seiji), no. 20.
Julia White, 'et al.', 'Hokusai and Hiroshige: Great Japanese Prints from the James A. Michener Collection, Honolulu Academy of Arts', Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 1998 (commentaries by Yoko Woodson), no. 44.
Literature:
Binyon, Laurence. 'A Catalogue of Japanese and Chinese Woodcuts in the British Museum'. London, British Museum, 1916, [Hokusai] no. 126.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
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Exhibited:
2001, 11 May-29 Jul, BM Japanese Galleries, '100 Views of Mount Fuji'
2010 Feb-Jun, BM Japanese Galleries, 'Japan from Prehistory to the Present'
2013 Apr – Jul, BM Japanese Galleries, 'Japan from Prehistory to the Present'
- Acquisition date
- 1906
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1906,1220,0.546
