A Lion Training a Cub

Date:: c. 1832/34
Medium:: Color woodblock print; otanzaku
Format:: Oban
Source:: Art Institute of Chicago

Typical Price

Later reprint (Meiji–Taisho era publishers): $50–$400
Good later impression (Edo-period, worn blocks): $1,500–$8,000
Good early impression (fine bokashi, vivid color): $8,000–$30,000
Fine early impression (exceptional atmospheric quality): $30,000–$80,000

Hiroshige transformed Japanese landscape printing through his mastery of bokashi (gradated wash) technique and sensitivity to weather, season, and light. His atmospheric landscapes directly influenced Impressionist painters in Europe after Japanese prints reached the West in the 1860s.

Description

A lion carries a cub in this small otanzaku-format print from the early 1830s. The subject draws on a Chinese artistic and literary tradition in which the lion (shishi) tests its offspring by dropping them into a valley — only the strongest cubs climb back up and are raised. Hiroshige's treatment is compact and direct, the two animals filling the narrow vertical format.