Sanuki Province

Sanuki Province, on ukiyo-e.org, is one of Utagawa Hiroshige's contributions to the imagery of Japan's provinces, an Edo ukiyo-e landscape print subject he developed with particular ambition in his late series The Famous Views of the Sixty-odd Provinces (Rokujuyoshu meisho zue). Sanuki, on the northern coast of Shikoku facing the Inland Sea, was known for the great Buddhist pilgrimage site of Zentsuji and for views across to the islands of the Seto Inland Sea. Hiroshige typically organized provincial views around a single recognizable landmark: a temple, a beach, a famous pine, or a configuration of islands. The composition here, in keeping with that approach, foregrounds water and shore, with mountains or islands recessing into the distance and a sky deepening through bokashi at the upper edge. Without a clear title cartouche the sheet cannot be tied to a specific publisher's edition, but its presence on ukiyo-e.org confirms its place in the long Western collecting tradition of Hiroshige's provincial work. Such prints were valued in their own day as both armchair travel and as cultural shorthand: a single image could stand for an entire province in much the same way that Hiroshige's Edo views stood for an entire city.