• Suzuki [すずき] and kinmedai [金目鯛] with sprigs of shiso [しそ] from an untitled series known as the Large Fish (<i>Uozukushi</i> [魚尽くし])
Suzuki [すずき] and kinmedai [金目鯛] with sprigs of shiso [しそ] from an untitled series known as the Large Fish (<i>Uozukushi</i> [魚尽くし])
Suzuki [すずき] and kinmedai [金目鯛] with sprigs of shiso [しそ] from an untitled series known as the Large Fish (<i>Uozukushi</i> [魚尽くし])
Suzuki [すずき] and kinmedai [金目鯛] with sprigs of shiso [しそ] from an untitled series known as the Large Fish (<i>Uozukushi</i> [魚尽くし])
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Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川広重) (artist 1797 – 1858)

Suzuki [すずき] and kinmedai [金目鯛] with sprigs of shiso [しそ] from an untitled series known as the Large Fish (Uozukushi [魚尽くし])

Print

ca 1840 – 1842
14 in x 9.625 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Hiroshige ga (広重画)
Artist's seal: Ichiryūsai
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Legion of Honor, San Francisco
British Museum
Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna
Honolulu Museum of Art - referred to as a "Common Seabass, Common Pandora" and dated ca. 1836-38
National Museum of Asian Art
Connecticut College
National Diet Library
Umi-no-Meru Mori Art Museum (via Cultural Heritage Online)
Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Brussels
Los Angeles County Museum of Art The curatorial files at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston state: "The first edition of this series was privately printed in the form of a kyôka poetry album in the orihon format, with ten illustrated sheets and four sheets of text only. Soon afterward, the blocks were reused for commercial prints, with the publisher's mark and censor's kiwame seal added (and in a few cases, different poems). One additional design, the trout, was included in the commercial series; and another nine designs were added still later by a different publisher."

Later they add: "Poem by Suzugaki: Oku tsuyu no/ hikaru kogane no/ hanasusaki/ kazashi ni saseru/ Tatsunomiya-hime"

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"In c. 1832, when Hiroshige was experiencing his first period of success and had been approached with multiple commissions, he also turned to a subject which up to that point nobody had dealt with in a similar way. Perhaps there wee two precedents in book form, both anthologies of haiku: Katsuma Ryūsi's beautiful haiku book titled Umi no sachi, (Boon from the sea, 1762... and Kitao Masayoshi's Tatsu no Miya Tsuko (Servitors to the Dragon Palace, 1802)...

A group of poets commissioned the production of an album of ten prints illustrating fishes accompanied by kyōka verses. The name of the group is unknown, but the names of the individuals include some well-known poets, some of them affiliated to the Yomogawa circle. The first edition of ten prints was issued in album form, and therefore all the designs have a centerfold. The names of the poets are presented alongside the poems, though the publisher's seal and kiwame censorship seal are absent. Just as in the case of the Edo kinko hakkei no uchi series... commissioned by the Taihaidō group, the fish series which at this point included 11 designs, appeared slightly later in a commercial edition published by Nishimuraya Yohachi around 1832-34. in 1840 nine prints were added carrying the publisher's seal of Yamada Shōjirō."

Quoted from: Hiroshige: Shaping the Image of Japan by Chris Uhlenbeck and Marije Jansen, 2008, p. 41.

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"This series of ten or eleven prints - it is not certain whether a print of trout belongs tothe series or not - was originally commissioned by a poetry club. They were thus first issued as a de luxe kyōka folding albums and all the prints from the first edition... have a centerfold.

Bokashi was added to the upper edge in later impressions..."

Quoted from: Hiroshige: Prints and Drawings by Matthi Forrer, Prestel, 1997, n.p., entry #82.

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Sea bass (すずき), Golden-eyed sea bream (金目鯛) and shiso (しそ). [The plant is variously described as a 'beefsteak plant', perilla and/or shiso. These may all be the same thing, but for now we don't know for sure. The names of the fishes are different too, somewhat.]

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Illustrated:

1) in color in a full-page reproduction in Hiroshige: the Master of Nature by Gian Carlo Calza, Skira, 2009, p. 58. Listed as I.42. Referred to as "Common Seabass, Common Pandora". A different edition. (The print in the Lyon Collection has more seals and the artist's seal is different.) The catalog entry for this prints says: "The poetry of this still-life is a rhetorical exercise in praise of the common seabass and common pandora and their precious restorative properties (for others). Hiroshige does not seem to have been especially gifted in still-lifes, but on the other hand, they have never been part of the Japanese pictorial tradition, and nor were cut plants or flowers (except obviously in scientific publications). This art form is something borrowed from the Western tradition. Nevertheless, we clearly see Hiroshige's colouristic flair, his accuracy of detail and his curiosity for a new type of art that was beginning to make inroads."

2) in black and white in 'Hiroshige: A shoal of red herrings' by Richard Kruml in Andon 49, October, 1994, fig. 20, p. 40. Kruml wrote: "Suzuki, Japanese sea perch (Lateolabrax japonicus) and kaneme-tai, red bream (possibly Beryx splendens). With shiso or beefsteak plant. Poem by Atsugaki."
kachō-e (bird and flower picture - 花鳥絵) (genre)