Utagawa Hiroshige II (1826 -1869) Moonlit Night at Ryogoku in Edo, 1853. Oban triptych.
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This stunning triptych is by Hiroshige the Second. Hiroshige II - he was named Suzuki Chinpei - became apprenticed to Hiroshige under the name Shigenobu at an unknown age. His earliest known work is the illustrations for a book called Twenty-four Paragons of Japan and China from 1849.
Hiroshige II produced a large number of commissioned work in the 1850s in the style of the elder Hiroshige, and often signed his work Ichiryūsai mon (student of Ichiryūsai, another art name of Hiroshige I's). In 1858, he married Hiroshige I's daughter Otatsu after her father’s death and inherited the Hiroshige name, as well as the names Ichiryūsai and Ryūsai which makes life more and more complicated for collectors.
The artist moved from Edo to Yokohama in 1865 after dissolving his marriage and began using the name Kisai Rissho. During this decade he produced a number of collaborative print series, particularly with Kunisada who had earlier worked with Hiroshige I. In his final years he turned mainly to decorating works intended for export, such as tea chests, kites, and lanterns. He died at the age of 44 in 1869.
Hiroshige I took on few students; Hiroshige II was the most successful of these. His works have often been confounded with those of his master, which they resemble closely in style, subject, and signature. Early scholars did not even recognise him as a separate artist.
To make matters worse, another pupil of the first Hiroshige - Shigemasa - later married the master's daughter, Otatsu, and also began using the name Hiroshige; this artist now is known as Hiroshige III.
Attribution can really only be done by signature and consensus. This stunning triptych could so easily be the work of Hiroshige I. It is a rare print… I have found only one other copy. It shows an evening scene of ‘beauties’ under moonlight before the astonishing Ryogoku Bridge. The bridge across the Sumida River was built in 1659 but was rebuilt and repaired many times. It was the focus of many Edo-period woodblock prints.
These geisha have all the attributes and paraphernalia of the sophisticated ‘floating world’… shamisen and andon lamps, tea things on lacquer trays, rich brocade cloths and hair pins. Hiroshige I devised these scenes in rich blues and night colours… there is a darkness to them that is entirely lacking in the archaic period scenes of the early Edo period. Such female groups in the prints of Utamaro are light, mobile and delicate. There is a brooding to the Hiroshige clan never fully explained.
A fine triptych. Colour and impression are good, the print has been professionally backed at some point with Japanese paper and is very stable. There are some scuffs and surface marks but otherwise very good. Full size and very rare.
77cm x 38cm.
