NAKO BAY AND THE MIE RIVER – STATION #44. This color woodblock print by the artist Utagawa Hiroshige is titled as. Yokkaichi: Nako Bay and the Mie River” (“Yokkaichi, Nako no ura Miekawa). From the series ” Famous Sights of the Fifty-three Stations” (“Gojusan tsugi meisho zue”). Also known as the Vertical Tokaido. It bears the artist’s signature Hiroshige hitsu, the. Aratame, the zodiacal 1855 date seal, and the stamped publisher’s seal Tsutaya Kichizo (Koeido) within the block lower left. The format of the print is vertical oban (Tate-e), printed on thin cream laid paper. The image size measures 13 1/2 x 8 13/16 inches. 343 x 224 mm. And the sheet with margins measures 14 3/8 x 9 1/4 inches (365 x 235 mm). The print comes unframed. There is a stain spot in the margin lower left, and a few very small faint foxing spots in the image, otherwise the woodblock print is in very good condition for its age, a crisp image, with good bleed through to verso. Utagawa Hiroshige, famous Japanese painter and printmaker, was known especially for his landscape prints. The last great figure of the Ukiyo-e, or popular, school of printmaking, he transmuted everyday landscapes into intimate, lyrical scenes. However, the subjects of his work were atypical of the Ukiyo-e genre, whose typical focus was on beautiful women, popular actors, and other scenes of the urban pleasure districts of Japan’s.
