Illustrated Book: Scenes of Suruga and Edo (Ehon suruga-mai), 1st of 3 volumes

Illustrated Book: Scenes of Suruga and Edo (Ehon suruga-mai), 1st of 3 volumes, is a color woodblock-illustrated book designed by Kitagawa Utamaro and held by the Harvard Art Museums. Ehon suruga-mai belongs to the rich tradition of Edo period illustrated books that paired narrative or topographic text with multi-page sequences of images, and Utamaro contributed a number of such projects across his career in close collaboration with leading publishers and kyoka poets. The first volume opens a survey of scenes in Suruga and Edo, weaving regional places and urban life into a connected visual program that complements Utamaro's better-known single-sheet ukiyo-e prints. As one of the foremost designers of Edo bijin-ga, Kitagawa Utamaro brought to the book format the same attention to figure and gesture that defined his beauty prints, while also engaging with the architectural and landscape settings that the printed page allowed him to develop at a more leisurely pace. The volume reflects how late eighteenth-century ukiyo-e expanded into book form to address audiences interested in poetry, place, and contemporary social life. For students of Utamaro and of Edo print culture, Harvard's holding of the first volume of Ehon suruga-mai documents the breadth of his engagement with the medium beyond the single sheet.