Bidspirit auction | Utagawa Hiroshige ”Eight Snow Scenes

Utagawa Hiroshige ”Eight Snow Scenes in the Eastern Capital” Woodblock Prints - All eight prints in the series included making a complete set.    Dimensions: 9 3/4” x 15”    Condition: Toning and foxing to the paper. Some prints have oil stains. All prints are in very fragile condition and have tears and wear to the paper. The pigment is saturated and bold. Please see images for details.    Artist Bio: Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) was the supreme designer of landscape and famous-place prints in the ukiyo-e tradition, and above all the master of snow, rain and evening atmosphere — high horizons, flattened planes of untouched white paper for snow, figures reduced to dark accents under umbrellas. ”Toto Yukimi Hakkei, ” Eight Snow Scenes in the Eastern Capital, is a snow-themed variant on the classical eight-views formula, the Eastern Capital being Edo. Hiroshige made the designs around 1842–47 and they passed the censor, but they were never cut to blocks in his lifetime; the drawings survived in Paris, and the series was first published in Kyoto in 1928 by the Shotaro Sato firm, which commissioned the carver Yujiro Maeda and the printer Gasen Oiwa to cut blocks from the original designs.