utagawa-hiroshige

Medium:: Woodblock print
Format:: Oban
Source:: Art Institute of Chicago

Typical Price

Later reprint (Meiji–Taisho era publishers): $50–$400
Good later impression (Edo-period): $1,000–$5,000
Good early impression (vivid color, fine bokashi): $5,000–$20,000
Fine early impression (exceptional color and condition): $20,000–$60,000

Hiroshige produced an estimated 8,000 designs over his 40-year career, making him one of the most prolific masters of ukiyo-e. His market has strengthened significantly in recent years, with the 2025 Sotheby's Paris record of $2.4M and growing international collector interest.

Description

A work from the catalogue of Utagawa Hiroshige, the Edo-period master whose landscape prints redefined how the Japanese public saw their own geography. Before Hiroshige, landscape was secondary to figure subjects in ukiyo-e. His series The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido, published in the 1830s, proved that views of mountains, rivers, rain-soaked villages, and moonlit harbors could captivate print buyers as powerfully as images of courtesans and actors. This oban print carries the visual hallmarks of Hiroshige's school: fluid line work, sensitive color grading, and an intuitive sense for the emotional temperature of a place.