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Edo prints

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	Design:	Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806)
	Title:	Above and below Ryōgoku bridge
	Size:	38.4 x 25.6 cm (ōban)
	Posthumous printing from newly cut woodblocks
	Photography:	Jacques Commandeur

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Enlargement

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Originally released ca. 1795-6 by publisher Ōmiya Gonkurō, this version was published around the 1920s by publisher and designer Hashiguchi Goyō (1880-1921) from newly carved woodblocks.

Below Ryōgoku bridge a chokibune (a small ferry boat which transported passengers and goods at speed along the river) is being manoeuvred along the Sumida river while its two female passengers, sheltering from the sun beneath a parasol, observe the ladies in the other boats.

This is the fourth print in a spectacular hexaptych of woodblock prints. A simultaneous view of the prints in this hexaptych can be seen here.

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Artist’s signature on prow of the boat on the right:

Character	Reading	Meaning	Translation
歌	uta	poem
麿	maro	you	Drawn by
筆	hitsu	writing brush	Utamaro

Followed by a black Iwa seal on the same prow as well as a rectangular seal 23-068 of the original publisher Ōmiya Gonkurō containing his name and address: Hon Ōmiya Asakusa Kayamachi. See Marks (2011, p.69).

Red rectangular Goyo publisher seal in left margin of the print.

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References

• Asano, Shūgō, and Clark, Timothy (1995). The passionate art of Kitagawa Utamaro (2 volumes in slipcase). Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun.

• Collia-Suzuki, Gina (2009). The Complete Woodblock Prints of Kitagawa Utamaro. A Descriptive Catalogue. Weston-super-Mare, United Kingdom: Nezu Press.

• Kobayashi, Tadashi (1993). Utamaro. Portraits from the Floating World. Tokyo: Kodansha International.

• Marks, Andreas (2011). Publishers of Japanese Woodblock Prints: A Compendium. Leiden: Hotei Publishing.

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Provenance: Chris Uhlenbeck’s Hotei Japanese Prints