Snow at Benzaiten Shrine in Inokashira Pond is part of Utagawa Hiroshige's series Snow, Moon, and Flowers at Famous Places (Meisho setsugekka), dated to 1839 and held by the Art Institute of Chicago (object 19040). The setsugekka theme grouped seasonal symbols, snow, moon, and flowering plants, around well-known sites, allowing the artist to combine famous-places imagery with traditional poetic categories. Inokashira Pond, on the western edge of Edo, was the source of one of the city's main aqueducts and the location of a Benzaiten shrine on a small island reached by bridge. Hiroshige's snow design shows the shrine and its surrounding trees blanketed in fresh snowfall, with the dark water of the pond providing a calm horizontal counterweight. Figures cross the bridge toward the island, hunched against the cold, while pale gray washes in the sky suggest continuing snow. As an Edo ukiyo-e landscape print, the sheet is a model of Hiroshige's snow scene technique: an extensive use of unprinted paper for the snow surfaces, restrained accents of indigo, vermilion, and warm brown, and a gentle bokashi gradient in the sky. For collectors, Meisho setsugekka offers a cohesive cycle in which to study how Hiroshige modulated the same sites across different weathers and times of day, and the Inokashira snow scene is among its most quietly atmospheric designs.
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Snow at Benzaiten Shrine in Inokashira Pond (Inokashira no ike Benzaiten no yashiro yuki no kei), from the series "Snow, Moon, and Flowers at Famous Places (Meisho setsugekka)" was created by Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川広重) in c. 1844/45.
Snow at Benzaiten Shrine in Inokashira Pond (Inokashira no ike Benzaiten no yashiro yuki no kei), from the series "Snow, Moon, and Flowers at Famous Places (Meisho setsugekka)" depicts birds & flowers, landscapes, and moonlight.
