Hatsune Riding Ground, from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei) 名所江戸百景)
Medium
Polychrome woodblock printed book; ink and color on paper
Dimensions
14 1/2 × 10 × 1 1/4 in. (36.8 × 25.4 × 3.2 cm)
Classification
Illustrated Books
Culture & Period
Japan · Edo period (1615–1868)
Department
Asian Art
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1918
Accession Number
JIB51
Tags
Art Historical Context
Utagawa Hiroshige’s “Hatsune Riding Ground” belongs to his celebrated series *One Hundred Famous Views of Edo*, published between 1856 and 1858. Created during the final decades of the Edo period, the print captures a tranquil corner of the bustling capital—now modern Tokyo—where training grounds for horses once stood amid fields and waterways. Hiroshige, a master of the ukiyo-e school, used this ambitious project to document both celebrated landmarks and everyday scenes, offering viewers a vivid portrait of a city on the cusp of dramatic change. The work is a polychrome woodblock print, a me...
About the Artist
Utagawa Hiroshige|Uoya Eikichi · 1826–1869
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858), born Andō Tokutarō, was the last great master of Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock printmaking and one of the most influential landscape artists in history. Born in Edo (modern Tokyo) into a low-ranking samurai family serving as fire wardens, Hiroshige transformed landscape printmaking into a poetic meditation on nature, weather, and everyday life. His revolutionary approac...