Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Hiroshige's Japan: Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road

(from 9th Dec 2014 until 16th Feb 2015)

Explore works by one of the great masters of the Japanese landscape print, Utagawa Hiroshige.

Detail of 'Morning Mist at Mishima', by Utagawa Hiroshige I, 1833-1834 (Museum no: EAX.4269)
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Tora's Rain at Ōiso

  • Description

    The title of this print refers to a twelfth-century courtesan Tora Gozen. She was the mistress of Soga no Jūrō, the elder of two brothers who killed the lord Kudo in 1192 to avenge the death of their father. According to legend, when Jūrō successfully avenged his father’s death, Tora Gozen wept and her tears were transformed into rain, known as ‘Tora’s Rain’. Appropriately, the travellers here approaching the seaside station of Ōiso are caught in a heavy downpour.

  • Details

    Series
    Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō
    Associated place
    AsiaJapanHonshūKantōTōkyō prefecture Tōkyō (place of creation)
    AsiaJapanHonshūKantōTōkyō prefecture Tōkyō (place of publication)
    AsiaJapanHonshūTōkaidō road Ōiso (subject)
    Date
    published 1833 - 1834
    Artist/maker
    Utagawa Hiroshige I (1797 - 1858) (designer)
    Associated people
    Hoeido (active early 18th century - late 19th century) (publisher)
    Takenouchi Magohachi (active c. 1833 - 1850) (publisher)
    Material and technique
    woodblock print, with bokashi (tonal gradation)
    Dimensions
    mount 40.6 x 55.7 cm (height x width)
    print 24.1 x 36.6 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    Technique index
    Object type index
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Presented by Mrs Allan and Mr and Mrs H. N. Spalding, 1952.
    Accession no.
    EAX.4686
  • Further reading

    Pollard, Clare, Mitsuko Ito, Landscape, Cityscape: Hiroshige Woodblock Prints in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2014), no.2, p.40, illus. p.40

Past Exhibition

see (1)

Location

    • currently in research collection

Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.

 

Notice

Objects from past exhibitions may have now returned to our stores or a lender. Click into an individual object record to confirm whether or not an object is currently on display. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis, so please contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular Eastern Art object.

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