Zenkoji Temple in Shinano Province

Zenkoji Temple in Shinano Province is a Japanese landscape color woodblock print by Yoshijiro Urushibara, depicting the great Buddhist temple complex of Zenko-ji in present-day Nagano. Although Urushibara is best known for the European views he produced during his long London residency and for the Frank Brangwyn collaboration that defined his middle career, he never abandoned Japanese subject matter, and prints such as this one show his engagement with the temple, mountain, and provincial imagery that had long been a staple of ukiyo-e and shin-hanga landscape work. Zenko-ji is one of the most important Buddhist pilgrimage sites in Japan, its main hall a designated National Treasure, and Urushibara composes the view around the temple architecture set within the broader Shinano landscape rather than focusing on a single hall in isolation. The print uses his standard hand-printed technique: a small number of carefully cut blocks, water-based pigments applied in transparent layers, and unprinted paper used to read as cloud, mist, or distant ground. The result combines the topographical interest of a meisho landscape with the restrained palette and graphic clarity that characterise the London Japanese woodblock idiom he had developed in Britain. The image is documented through ukiyo-e.org via a Worth Point auction listing, which preserves the impression's iconography and Urushibara attribution for collectors and researchers tracing his output beyond the better-known European series.