Asakusa Kinryūzan Temple - After Utagawa Hiroshige

Artist: Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858)

Title: Asakusa Kinryūzan Temple

Series: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo Hyakkei)

Original Design Date: 1856

Original Publisher: Uoya Eikichi (Sakanaya Eikichi)

Reprint Publisher: Daiichi Kōgei

Edition: 20th-century Shōwa-period recarved edition

Medium: Genuine Japanese color woodblock print

Format: Ōban tate-e

Paper Size: 12.625 X 8.5 in

This genuine Japanese woodblock print is a 20th-century Daiichi Kōgei reproduction of Hiroshige’s Asakusa Kinryūzan Temple, from his celebrated late series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. The original design was published in 1856 and depicts the approach to Sensō-ji, one of Edo’s most famous temples, during a winter snowfall. The red Daiichi Kōgei-ban inscription in the lower left margin identifies this impression as a later recarved edition rather than an Edo-period printing.

Hiroshige frames the snowy temple grounds from beneath the enormous lantern of the Kaminarimon, or Thunder Gate. Only the lower portion of the lantern is visible, looming dramatically into the composition and creating the kind of bold, cropped foreground that became a hallmark of Hiroshige’s late work. Beyond it, visitors make their way through the snow toward the temple complex, with the red gates and five-story pagoda standing out against snow-covered trees and rooftops. The contrast between the massive lantern overhead and the tiny figures below gives the scene both intimacy and monumentality.

Inscriptions & Marks:

• Artist: Utagawa Hiroshige
• Title: Asakusa Kinryūzan (浅草金龍山)
• Series: Meisho Edo Hyakkei (名所江戸百景), “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo”
• Original design date: 1856
• Original publisher: Uoya Eikichi
• Reprint publisher: Daiichi Kōgei
• Red Daiichi Kōgei edition mark in lower left margin
• Hiroshige signature reproduced from the original design
• Genuine carved-and-printed Japanese woodblock reproduction

Condition: Very Good. Full margins with light overall toning and minor scattered surface marks consistent with age. Minor handling wear and light discoloration to the margins. Colors remain strong and attractive, particularly the deep reds, greens, and blacks against the pale winter landscape. Please review the photographs carefully, as they form part of the condition description.

About the Artist: Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) was one of the greatest masters of Japanese woodblock printmaking and the artist most closely associated with landscape ukiyo-e. Best known for his poetic depictions of travel, changing seasons, weather, and the quiet beauty of everyday life, Hiroshige transformed familiar places into deeply atmospheric works through his masterful use of composition and color. His celebrated series, including The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō and One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, became some of the most influential prints ever produced in Japan.

About the Series: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo was Hiroshige’s great late-career series, produced between 1856 and 1858. Created near the end of his life, the series shows Hiroshige pushing his landscape compositions in increasingly inventive directions. He frequently used extreme foreground elements, dramatic cropping, unusual viewpoints, and striking seasonal and weather effects to transform familiar locations around Edo into highly distinctive images.

Asakusa Kinryūzan Temple is a particularly strong example of that late style. Rather than offering a conventional view of Sensō-ji, Hiroshige places the viewer directly beneath the giant lantern of the entrance gate, using it almost as an architectural frame around the snowy scene beyond. The resulting composition feels surprisingly modern and is characteristic of the visual experimentation that made One Hundred Famous Views of Edo so influential on later European artists.

About this Edition: This impression is not an Edo-period printing. The red 第一巧藝版 (Daiichi Kōgei-ban)inscription in the lower left margin identifies it as a later Japanese reproduction. Daiichi Kōgei editions were genuine woodblock prints produced from newly carved blocks after historic ukiyo-e designs rather than photomechanical reproductions. For a sales listing, I would conservatively describe this as a 20th-century Shōwa-period Daiichi Kōgei recarved edition unless documentation establishing a more precise publication date is available.