#8. Yushima

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

Yushima Seido, the Confucian temple in the Yushima district of Edo, was established in 1690 by the fifth shogun Tsunayoshi and served as the center of official Neo-Confucian scholarship in Tokugawa Japan. Its austere black-lacquered buildings and spacious grounds offered a stark contrast to the ornate Buddhist temples elsewhere in the city. This numbered Edo view captures the temple's formal, scholarly precinct.