Leftmost Print from Pleasure Boats on the Sumida River beneath Shin-Ōhashi Bridge
- Date:
- c. 1792
- Medium:
- woodblock print from a pentaptych; ink and color on paper
- Source:
- Cleveland Museum of Art
This sheet by Chobunsai Eishi, dated about 1792, is the leftmost of a multi-print composition titled Pleasure Boats on the Sumida River beneath Shin-Ohashi Bridge. The full composition, of which this is one segment, depicts a row of pleasure boats gliding beneath the Shin-Ohashi bridge, one of the most prominent spans on the Sumida River in late-eighteenth-century Edo and a recurring subject in [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e). Eishi handles the scene with his characteristic restraint and elongation. As a Kano-trained ukiyo-e master, he gives the bridge's wooden trusses and the boats' slatted roofs the disciplined linear treatment of an academy painter, and the water is suggested through softly modulated ripples rather than dramatic spray. The figures aboard the boats are tall and willowy in his signature manner, sloping shoulders and narrow waists balanced against long, evenly described kimono folds. The horizontal of the bridge runs across the full composition, providing a slow visual counter to the vertical of the figures and the sail. The palette favors muted greys, pale indigos, and quiet ochres, consistent with Eishi's broader silvery tonality. The Cleveland Museum of Art preserves this leftmost sheet as accession 1916.1153, identified within the Pleasure Boats on the Sumida River beneath Shin-Ohashi Bridge composition. The print is a representative example of Eishi's contribution to the Edo [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) genre at its most urban, when his elegant figure type was deployed against recognizable city architecture and waterway leisure.
c. 1790
Color woodblock print; oban
c. 1789/95
Color woodblock print; right sheet of oban triptych
c. 1791/92
Color woodblock print; chuban
c. 1793
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
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1947
Color woodblock print; oban
1926
Color woodblock print; oban
1930
Color woodblock print; oban
Leftmost Print from Pleasure Boats on the Sumida River beneath Shin-Ōhashi Bridge was created by Chōbunsai Eishi (鳥文斎栄之) in c. 1792.
Leftmost Print from Pleasure Boats on the Sumida River beneath Shin-Ōhashi Bridge depicts bridges.