Evening Bell at Mii Temple (Mii banshō), from an untitled series of Eight Views of Ōmi (Ōmi hakkei)
三井晩鐘
- Date:
- 1854
- Medium:
- Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper; ōban
- Source:
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
三井晩鐘
This 1854 woodblock print ([nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e)) by Utagawa Fusatane, held by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (object 253663), belongs to the same untitled series of Eight Views of Lake Biwa (Ōmi hakkei) and depicts the Evening Bell at Mii Temple (Mii banshō), one of the canonical eight subjects of the set. Mii-dera, properly Onjō-ji, is the great Tendai Buddhist temple at the base of Mount Nagara on the southwestern shore of Lake Biwa near the town of Ōtsu; its bronze bell, the so-called Bell of Benkei, was among the most celebrated temple bells in Japan and gives its name to this evening-view subject. The print shows the temple precincts at dusk with the bell tower visible among the gathered trees and the lake stretching beyond, in the format and atmospheric mode established by Hiroshige I's foundational 1834 series. The print is in standard ōban single-sheet format and uses the muted vegetable-pigment palette of the late Edo period. It is part of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston's extensive collection of Japanese prints, one of the largest such holdings outside Japan, originally assembled in significant part by Ernest Fenollosa and William Sturgis Bigelow in the 1880s and 1890s.
瀬田夕照
1854
Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper; ōban
蚕養草
1865
Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
比良暮雪
c. 1854-59
Color woodblock print; ōban
矢橋帰帆
1854
Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper; ōban
Evening Bell at Mii Temple (Mii banshō), from an untitled series of Eight Views of Ōmi (Ōmi hakkei) (三井晩鐘) was created by Utagawa Fusatane (歌川房種) in 1854.