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Gurnards, Flatfish, and Bamboo Grass, from an untitled series known as Large Fish


魚尽くし かながしら、木葉鰈、笹
Utagawa Hiroshige I (Japanese, 1797–1858)
Japanese
Edo period
about 1832–33 (Tenpô 3–4)

Medium/Technique Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
Dimensions Horizontal ôban; 25.2 × 35.9 cm (9 15/16 × 14 1/8 in.)
Credit Line William Sturgis Bigelow Collection
Accession Number11.17185
NOT ON VIEW
ClassificationsPrints

Catalogue Raisonné Mann, Sixty Years (2021), #118.12; Menegazzo, Hiroshige: Visioni dal Giappone (2018), #III.5; Ôta Mem. Mus., Hiroshige kachôga ten (1998), #114; Ukiyo-e shûka 14 (1981), Hiroshige list, p. 243, horizontal ôban #91.5; Tanba 1965, #421
DescriptionMFA impressions: 06.1313, 11.17184, 11.17185, 21.9603

No publisher's mark on this impression.
Poems translated in Mann, Sixty Years with Japanese Prints (2021), p. 306.

The first edition of this series was privately printed in the form of a kyôka poetry album in the orihon format, with ten illustrated sheets and four sheets of text only. Soon afterward, the blocks were reused for commercial prints, with the publisher's mark and censor's kiwame seal added (and in a few cases, different poems). One additional design, the trout, was included in the commercial series; and another nine designs were added still later by a different publisher. For a full reproduction and detailed discussion of the first edition, see Mann 2021, pp. 290-311.
Signed Ichiryûsai Hiroshige ga
一立斎広重画
InscriptionsPoems by Shimotsuke Edozaki Ryokujuen Motoari (Ryokujuen Motoari from Edozaki in Shimotsuke Province) and Jakuyakutei Chikuson
ProvenanceBy 1911, purchased by William Sturgis Bigelow (b. 1850 - d. 1926), Boston [see note 1]; 1911, gift of Bigelow to the MFA. (Accession Date: August 3, 1911)

NOTES:
[1] Much of Bigelow's collection of Asian art was formed during his residence in Japan between 1882 and 1889, although he also made acquisitions in Europe and the United States. Bigelow deposited many of these objects at the MFA in 1890 before donating them to the Museum's collection at later dates.