- Museum number
- 1906,1220,0.549
- Title
-
Object: Edo Suruga-cho Mitsui mise ryakuzu 江戸駿河町三井見世略圖 (Rough Impression of the Mitsui Shop in Suruga-cho, Edo)
-
Series: Fugaku sanjurokkei 冨嶽三十六景 (Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji)
- Description
-
Colour woodblock oban print. Tilers repairing end of roof; dancing New Year kites in sky; Mt Fuji rising above stone ramparts of outer moat of Edo Castle and samurai residences. 1 of 2 impressions. Inscribed and signed.
- Production date
- 1832 (probably 1832 (Keyes and Morse 2015))
- Dimensions
-
Height: 24.60 centimetres
-
Width: 36.60 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Curator's comments
- Clark 2001
If you walked a couple of blocks north from Nihombashi Bridge along the main street and then turned left between Muromachi 2-chome and 3-chome, this brought you into Suruga-cho, facing in the same direction as the present print -that is to say facing west down the street with the two-storey buildings of the Echigoya drapery store run by the Mitsui family (forerunner of the present Mitsukoshi Department Store) on either side. The store was originally founded at Nihombashi Honcho in 1673 and flourished using the novel selling technique of 'cash only, prices not marked up' ('genkin, kakene nashi'), as written prominently on the sign boards that line the street here. These also advertise 'drapery products' ('gofuku butsuhin', right) and 'braids and threads' ('kumimono ito-rui', left). The street was named Suruga-cho because it framed a wonderful view of Mt Fuji (in Suruga Province).
The viewpoint is a clever one, tilting the head upwards to watch tilers who are repairing the end of the roof - thereby excluding from the bottom of the composition any distraction caused by the ground-floor rooms of the Echigoya store and their ubiquitous shoppers. This roof has been exaggeratedly compressed from either side to produce a gable that rivals in its pointedness the shape of Fuji and, thanks to the contrived viewpoint, manages to dwarf the size of the mountain as well. Even higher are the dancing New Year kites, one emblazoned with the 'ju' (long-life) character taken from 'Eijudo', the name of the publisher. Mt Fuji is placed dynamically off-centre, rising above the stone ramparts of the Outer Moat of Edo Castle and samurai residences within.
It is unusual for the entire sky to be printed in a light shade of Berlin Blue and the tiles of the roofs are printed in a lighter grey than normal, making the architectural details more distinct. The much more commonly encountered printing, with one wide gradated band of deep blue behind Fuji and another at the top of the sky, is represented by another impression in the British Museum collection (1937.7-10.0139).
References:
'Ukiyo-e taikei, vol. 13: Fugaku sanju-rokkei', Tokyo, Shueisha, 1975 (text by Kobayashi Tadashi), no. 21.
'Meihin soroimono ukiyo-e, vol. 8: Hokusai I', Tokyo, Gyosei, 1991 (text by Nagata Seiji), no. 2.
Julia White, 'et al.', 'Hokusai and Hiroshige: Great Japanese Prints from the James A. Michener Collection, Honolulu Academy of Arts', Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 1998 (commentaries by Yoko Woodson), no. 26.
Literature:
Binyon, Laurence. 'A Catalogue of Japanese and Chinese Woodcuts in the British Museum'. London, British Museum, 1916, [Hokusai] no. 118.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2001, 11 May-29 Jul, BM Japanese Galleries, '100 Views of Mount Fuji'
- Associated events
- Associated Event: New Year
- Acquisition date
- 1906
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1906,1220,0.549