Nihonbashi: from the series Views of famous places of Edo

Utagawa Shigenobu (1826-1869) was the chief pupil of the the second great master after Hokusai of the Japanese landscape woodblock print, Andō Hiroshige (1797-1858) He took over his master's gō 'Hiroshige' on the latter's death, and is now principally known by it, being more usually referred to as 'Hiroshige II'.

The general view on him now is that was a relatively minor artist who was unable to generate a distinct style of his own, but nonetheless occasionally designed some very fine prints, and produced a considerable body of acceptable work. Many critics feel that the quality of his later works fell off significantly towards the end of his life, especially during the last half-decade.

He was born into a family of fire-watchmen, like his master Hiroshige I. He was originally named Suzuki Chimpei, and as his artistic career began, he was given the name 'Shigenobu' by Hiroshige I. He was made part of his master's household, and married Hiroshige I's daughter Tatsu. During the period 1849-1858, he produced his earliest works, very much in the style of Hiroshige I. His work was of principally landcape or other natural themes, although he also produced figure prints, and prints of samurai and historical subjects. He also began signing with 'Ichiyūsai', a former gō of Hiroshige I) during this period.

He is thought to have assisted Hiroshige I with a number of his later series, including Thirty-six Views of Fuji and the Upright Tokaido. He is known to have contributed at least three prints in October 1858 to Hiroshige I's last great series of landscape prints, the Hundred Views of Edo, using the signature 'Hiroshige' (during Hiroshige I's lifetime).

After Hiroshige's death in 1858, in the first month of the following year he formally adopted his master's gō of Ichiryūsai and Hiroshige. During this period his work continued to strongly resemble that of Hiroshige I, both in style and subject matter. In 1865, he divorced his wife, moved to Yokohama, remarried, and adopted the names Ryūsho and Risshō. Although his prints were shown at the Paris Exhibition in 1867, this brought him little success in Japan, and he was forced to make a living painting tea-sets and lanterns for export. He died in Yokohama, in great poverty, in 1869.

The Views of famous places of Edo series dates from 1861-64, some years after his master's death and when he was in his mid-thirties; the prints in this series are signed Hiroshige. Edo was renamed Tōkyō shortly after this series was produced.  The series title is in the vertical rectangular cartouche in the top right corner; the title of each individual print is on the right-hand edge of the horizontal rectangular cartouche. It is not known for certain how many prints are in the series; Edward F. Strange, in The Colour-Prints of Hiroshige, says it contains "not less than 51" prints - but then goes on to list 57 prints! The web-site hiroshigeii/net identifies 71 of them.

Te Papa's (currently) sole representative in the series is a delightful one, indeed one of the best prints in its modest collection of Japanese prints before it was considerably enhanced in 2016. The print has a typically Japanese viewpoint, showing the cropped rear end of a horse loaded with bolts of boldly patterned cloth, together with two ornamental plumes, crossing the Nihon Bridge, with a view over to the river and its craft below. Anyone leading the horse is merely assumed and not depicted.

Sources:

"Hiroshige II's series 'Views of Famous Places in Edo (Edo meishō zue)' (1861-1864)", http://www.hiroshigeii.net/series/ViewsEdo.html

"Utagawa Shigenobu (Hiroshige II) (1826-1869)", http://mercury.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/prints/shigenobu.html

Dr Mark Stocker  Curator, Historical International Art   May 2019