Original woodblock print – Utagawa Sadahide (1807-1873) – “Ise gosangū no zu”伊勢御参宮之図(Greatest mountain of the three provinces) – Japan – 1869(Meiji 2 period)

Description

Original woodblock print – Utagawa Sadahide (1807-1873) – “Ise gosangū no zu”伊勢御参宮之図(Greatest mountain of the three provinces) – Japan – 1869(Meiji 2 period)

Utagawa sadahide is name ‘GounteiSadahide-e,sadahide-e’ 五雲亭貞秀画,貞秀画” in his signature.

Ise Jingu (Inner Shrine), whose main deity is Amaterasu Omikami, the ancestor of the imperial family, is said to have been visited before Emperor Meiji in 692 (the 6th year of Emperor Jito). It was the first visit by an emperor in 1177 years, with only ‘Emperor Jito’.

This ukiyo-e was drawn in October of the first year of the Meiji era, when Emperor Meiji entered Edo Castle, but in December of the first year of the Meiji era, he temporarily returned to the Kyoto Imperial Palace. In March of the following year, Meiji 2, he left Kyoto, visited Ise Jingu Shrine, and then returned to Tokyo.

This picture depicts the visit to Ise Jingu on the way.
Emperor Meiji is also drawn.

Sadahide was called “Flying Ukiyo-e” because there were many works with a composition as seen from above.
One of the features of this work is that it does not draw the mountain as one of the landscapes, but the whole picture from above.

Publisher:藤岡屋慶次郎

memo
Sadahide was born Hashimoto Kenjirō (橋本兼次郎) in 1807 in Fusa Province (modern Chiba Prefecture) in Shimōsa. He joined Utagawa school master Kunisada’s studio in the 1820s and become one of the master’s most prominent students. As a member of the school, he took on Utagawa as a surname, and also used the surname Gountei(五雲亭),Gyokuran(玉蘭,)Gyokuransai(玉蘭斎),Saou(玉翁) as an art name, and also used his birth surname as an art name late in his career.