Cockerel, Hen and Autumn Flowers

Cockerel, Hen and Autumn Flowers, dated 1837 and held by the Victoria and Albert Museum, is a bird-and-flower print by Utagawa Hiroshige produced during a period when his reputation as both a landscape master and a kacho-e designer was steadily rising. The image gathers a rooster and his hen among autumn blooms such as chrysanthemums or wild grasses, a combination that draws on long-standing East Asian iconographic traditions in which the cockerel embodies the five virtues, including courage and martial spirit. Hiroshige treats the subject with affectionate naturalism, balancing the strutting posture of the male bird with the modest gathering pose of the female, and surrounding them with carefully observed plant forms. As a complement to his celebrated Edo ukiyo-e landscape print designs, this composition shows how he extended his interest in atmosphere and seasonal mood into smaller, intimate formats. The colour palette of muted reds, ochres, and greens speaks of late summer and early autumn, while the keyblock line registers feathers, comb, and petals with characteristic Utagawa school precision. Bird-and-flower prints occupied an important place in the publishing economy of nineteenth-century Edo, sold individually and in small albums to a broad public that appreciated both their decorative beauty and their poetic associations. The V&A's holding of this sheet provides a window into Hiroshige's range and into the wider role that animal subjects played in his career, alongside the famous travel series and the city views for which he is best remembered.