Gion Festival at Ryogoku Bridge (Ryogoku-bashi Gion-e no zu)
両国橋祇園会之図
- Date:
- Edo period
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
- Source:
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
両国橋祇園会之図
This Edo-period color woodblock print ([nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e)), held by the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (accession reference sc161622), is Utagawa Yoshitomi's depiction of the summer Gion festival celebrated at the Ryōgoku Bridge in Edo, titled in the original Japanese "Ryōgoku-bashi Gion-e no zu." The Ryōgoku Bridge over the Sumida River was one of the most painted and printed sites in Edo, a node of summer entertainment, fireworks, and seasonal festivity that had drawn [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) designers from at least the early eighteenth century. The Gion festival, originally a Kyoto event in honor of the Yasaka Shrine, was celebrated in adapted form across Edo summer culture, and Ryōgoku Bridge — as the principal Edo site for warm-weather entertainment — was a natural setting for printed images of the celebrations. Yoshitomi's print belongs to the substantial Utagawa-school tradition of urban festival prints that combined topographical specificity with figural animation: the dense crowds, decorative banners, and characteristic silhouette of the bridge offer a representative example of the late-Edo treatment of Edo summer festivity. The print belongs to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston's William Sturgis Bigelow Collection, assembled during Bigelow's residence in Japan in the 1880s and bequeathed to the museum on his death in 1926; the Bigelow Collection remains one of the most important holdings of nineteenth-century Japanese prints in the United States.
1861
Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
10th month, 1860
Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
一勇齋國芳死絵
1861
Color woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
石山本願寺合戦
1869
Color woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
Woodblock print
![Mount Fuji on a Moonlit Night, Kawai Bridge (Tsukiyo no Fuji [Kawaibashi]), from the series "Selection of Views of the Tokaido (Tokaido fukei senshu)" by Kawase Hasui](https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/d0960668-1e73-339a-b182-fb995a54bff0/full/843,/0/default.jpg)
1947
Color woodblock print; oban
1926
Color woodblock print; oban
1930
Color woodblock print; oban
Gion Festival at Ryogoku Bridge (Ryogoku-bashi Gion-e no zu) (両国橋祇園会之図) was created by Utagawa Yoshitomi (歌川芳富) in Edo period.
Gion Festival at Ryogoku Bridge (Ryogoku-bashi Gion-e no zu) depicts bridges.