Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) | The complete set of One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei) | Edo period, 19th century

In 1856, Hiroshige and his publisher Uoya Eikichi issued his final body of work One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. The series expanded on a centuries old tradition of depicting meisho, or famous place typically redolent with literary associations.

Totalling 120 single-sheet woodblock prints, including the contents page and additional design by Utagawa Hiroshige II (1826-1869), the series is the largest landscape series in the history of ukiyo-e woodblock-printing. Hiroshige’s approach was strikingly novel: the prints were designed in the single-sheet vertical format more often associated with prints of actors, beauties or warriors, and the colour notably bold in its treatment. Hiroshige experimented greatly with compositional devices: unusual vantage points, dynamic close-cropped compositions emphasising an element in the foreground and the use of kiri, or cut to create an expansive sense of space. 

The series is structured according to the four seasons: nos. 1 - 42 comprise the spring section; summer includes nos. 43 - 72; autumn nos. 73 - 98 and winter nos. 99 - 119. The rare opportunity to view the work as a complete set not only allows the viewer to grasp the monumental scope of the series as a whole, but the vast scale of the city of Edo in all its iterations. Hiroshige guides us through the pervasive waterways interweaving the capital, its complex canal networks, rivers and pleasure boats that drift along the Sumida, the Great River and the broad moats of the Edo Castle. East of the Sumida we pass flat deltas, the outskirts of the Musashi Plain and the scenic hillocks occupied by temple precincts and daimyo villas.

The tour of the city takes us through markets, festivals and legend; architecture both grand and humble, labourers at work, courtesans of the Yoshiwara and dilettantes enjoying the pleasures of the capital are all subject to Hiroshige's encyclopedic rendering of what was then the largest metropolis in the world. The whole series was intended as Hiroshige's 'grand farewell' as stated on the contents page and has since been regarded as his masterwork.