Utagawa Kunisada (歌川国貞) / Toyokuni III (三代豊国) (artist 1786 – 01/12/1865)
View of Narumi (Narumi no zu: 鳴海之図) from the series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road (Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi no uchi: 東海道五十三次之内)
ca 1838
Signed: Gototei Kunisada ga (五渡亭国貞画)
Publisher: Sanoya Kihei
Censor's seal: kiwame
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - published by both Moriya Jihei and Sanoya Kihei
National Diet Library - published by Moriya Jihei and Sanoya Kihei
Spencer Museum of Art - published by Moriya Jihei
British Museum
Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna
Metropolitan Museum of Art - Hiroshige's version of this print
Virginia Museum of Fine Art
Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art - they date their copy to 1836
Bryn Mawr
Honolulu Museum of Art
Google maps - Arimatsu
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen (Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde, Leiden) - via Ritsumeikan University
Carnegie Museum of Art
Fujisawa Ukiyo-e Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art This is number 41 in this series. The curatorial files from the Museum für angewandte Kunst in Vienna, in translation, say: "In the depiction, Kunisada sticks to Hiroshige's original, with the exception of a few details. A fan saleswoman in the front. Her kimono and headscarf are dyed using the shibori technique 絞り染め, for which the place shown in the background is famous. "
****
In Tokaido Landscapes: The Path from Hiroshige to Contemporary Artists, 2011, #41, p. 53, speaking of the original Hiroshige print it says in a text by Sasaki Moritoshi: The subtitle refers to tie-dyed cotton produced in the Arimatsu district of Nagoya. The Narumi station was to the west of Arimatsu, but the stately buildings along the road (which remain today much as they were in the Edo period) are probably in Arimatsu."
****
Muneshige Narazaki in Masterworks of Ukiyo-e: Hiroshige, the 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō (p. 71) noted: "Shown here are two shops selling bolts of cloth and already made-up kimonos; both Narumi and nearby Arimatsu were famous for their tied-and-dyed (shibori) fabrics. Similar shops may still be seen there today. In the foreground rides a lady in a palanquin, behind her a gentleman on horseback. Nearby is the battlefield where the military leader Oda Nobunaga defeated Imagawa Yoshimoto, a powerful daimyo."
****
Illustrated:
1) in Arimatsu Shibori: A Japanese Tradition of Indigo Dyeing from the collection of the Arimatsu Shibori Exhibition Hall..., edited by Bonnie F. Abiko, Oakland University's Meadow Brook Art Gallery, Rochester, Michigan, 1995, illustration in color in plate #100, p. 63. The text reads: "A female traveler wears a miura pattern yukata and covers her head with a towel in the kumo shibori technique."
2) in a small color reproduction in Kunisada's Tokaido: Riddles in Japanese Woodblock Prints by Andreas Marks, Hotei Publishing, 2013, page 73, T24-41.
Sanoya Kihei (佐野屋喜兵衛) (publisher)
landscape prints (fūkeiga 風景画) (genre)
beautiful woman picture (bijin-ga - 美人画) (genre)