Utagawa Kunisada (Toyokuni III) (1786-1865) / after Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858)
A mother with her child on her back carrying a tray with two bowls of tea. In the background two travellers, one on horseback and the other in a palanquin, in the shallow Okitsu river.
Title: Okitsu (no) zu (A view of Okitsu)
Series: Tôkaidô gojûsan tsugi no uchi (The Fifty-three Stations along the Tokaido)
Signature: Ôju Kunisada ga
Publisher: no publisher’s and censor’s mark (Sanoya Kihei, Edo)
Date: c. 1833
Size: Vertical Chûban, 25 x 17,8 cm
Excellent impression and very good colours. Unbacked. Right and bottom minimally trimmed. Very nice condition. According to Marks (pp. 82f, ill. 29) this is a (rare) first state of this print, showing several variations, as e.g. a different pattern in the apron, different script in the title cartouche etc.
For the landscape backgrounds of this beautiful bijin series Kunisada mostly and freely adapted scenes from Hiroshige's horizontal "Hôeidô-Tôkaidô“ (not yet completed at the time). Further information on the series in: Andreas Marks, Kunisada’s Tôkaidô. Riddles in Japanese Woodblock Prints. Leiden, 2013, p. 62 ff, T 24-18
€ 395,-