Memorial portrait of Utagawa Hiroshige

Utagawa Kunisada designed this 1858 memorial portrait, or shini-e, for his long-time collaborator and fellow Utagawa school designer Hiroshige, who died in the cholera epidemic that swept Edo that year. The two artists had often worked together on collaborative series such as the "Tokaido Goju-san Tsugi" and "Soga" suites, and Kunisada's design here pays explicit tribute to Hiroshige's legacy in Edo ukiyo-e. Although Kunisada's primary career was in yakusha-e and bijinga, he was equally fluent in the conventions of the memorial print, and this sheet draws on the genre's standard vocabulary: the deceased shown in priestly robes with shaved head, a Buddhist death name (kaimyo) inscribed nearby, a vase of flowers or other offering, and a posthumous poem (jisei) attributed to the departed. The composition centers on Hiroshige's likeness in a contemplative pose, with cartouches relating his death date and his lay and Buddhist names. Around the figure, Kunisada has incorporated visual references to landscape and travel motifs, the genres for which Hiroshige was best known, framing the print as both personal eulogy and public summation of an artistic life. Shini-e were among the most ephemeral products of the Edo ukiyo-e trade, often produced quickly and sold cheaply in the weeks following a celebrated death, which makes well-preserved impressions like this one in the Art Institute of Chicago especially significant. The sheet is also a key document for the history of the Utagawa school itself, recording the moment its two most prolific designers became, for the surviving Kunisada, mentor and memorialized friend.