Utagawa Hiroshige

Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake is one of Hiroshige’s most famous designs and is universally appreciated as the masterpiece of the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. Dense black clouds have gathered in the sky and are releasing a heavy summer downpour of rain onto the landscape beneath. Pedestrians crossing the bridge hurry off, huddled under umbrellas or straw capes. A solitary boatman guides his raft of logs along the river beyond. The bridge is Ohashi which crossed the Sumida River and along the far riverbank are the Shogunal storehouses at Atake.

After Japan opened its borders in 1858, Hiroshige’s prints soon saw popularity amongst the Impressionists in Europe. The artist Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) was a collector of Japanese prints and greatly admired Hiroshige. His fascination with the artist culminated in two oil on canvas renderings based on two of Hiroshige’s prints from the One Hundred Views of Edo series: Plum Estate, Kameido and Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake. Bridge in the Rain (after Hiroshige) was executed exactly thirty years after the original work was published and embellishes the original design with a border ornamented with decorative kanji characters. For van Gogh, Japan occupied a utopian place within his imagination; it was the land depicted in woodblock prints unmarked by shadows and radiant with light and colour, and in his rendition the colours are noticeably more emboldened.

Freddie Mercury longed to have this print in his collection. Mary Austin, Mercury’s closest friend and confidante, sought to purchase another impression of the same print on his behalf in these rooms at Sotheby’s, London, Highly Important Japanese Prints, Illustrated Books, Drawings and Paintings from the Henri Vever Collection Part III, 24 March 1977. The bidding was furious, and after some hesitation, Austin refrained from bidding further. Admittedly, Mercury was dejected at losing the opportunity to acquire this important print belonging to the most important print collector in the West. Unperturbed, their search for another impression took them to Japan, where they finally sourced the present impression of Hiroshige’s great masterwork, forming the highlight of Mercury’s collection of woodblock prints.

For the oil on canvas in the collection of the van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, object number s0114V1962, go to:

https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0114V1962

For van Gogh’s impression of Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake in the collection in the van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, object number n0081V1962, go to:

https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/japanese-prints/collection/n0081V1962