#42. Kasumigaseki

Medium:: Woodblock print
Format:: Oban
Source:: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria

Typical Price

Later reprint (Meiji–Taisho era publishers): $100–$600
Good later impression (Edo-period, worn blocks): $3,000–$12,000
Good early impression (vivid bokashi, crisp key lines): $12,000–$40,000
Fine early impression (exceptional color freshness and condition): $40,000–$100,000

From Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (1856–58), a 118-print series of vertical oban landscapes and genre scenes that defined the visual image of Edo for generations. A complete set sold for $405,400 at Sotheby's Online Jul 2024.

Description

Kasumigaseki — "Misty Barrier" — appears here as a numbered view in a survey of Edo's neighborhoods, the broad administrative district near the shogunal castle lined with the gates of the great daimyo estates. The name evoked a legendary barrier-gate and the atmospheric mists that gathered in the low-lying ground. As one of the capital's most formally ordered districts, Kasumigaseki offered a different character from the lively merchant quarters of the east.