The Meguro Fudo Temple

Date:: 1785-1787
Medium:: Print
Format:: Oban
Source:: Victoria and Albert Museum

Typical Price

Later reprint or reproduction (20th-century): $50–$300
Good later impression (Edo-period): $1,000–$5,000
Good early impression (vivid color, legible detail): $5,000–$20,000
Fine early impression (exceptional color and condition): $20,000–$60,000

Hokusai's genre scenes, bijin-ga (beautiful women), and miscellaneous subjects represent the breadth of his career across more than seven decades. The market for non-landscape Hokusai prints has strengthened as collectors seek beyond the most famous designs.

Description

The Meguro Fudo-do (Ryusen-ji temple), one of Edo's five Fudo temples and a popular pilgrimage destination in the city's southern suburbs, appears in this print from Hokusai's mid-1780s series of fashionable places. The temple's forested setting and its association with the fierce Buddhist deity Fudo Myoo — deity of immovable wisdom — gave it a character both devotional and scenic that attracted pilgrims and day-trippers alike.