Utagawa Kunisada (歌川国貞) / Toyokuni III (三代豊国) (artist 1786 – 01/12/1865)
View of Shono (Shono no zu: 四日市之図) from the series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road (Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi no uchi: 東海道五十三次之内)
ca 1838
Signed: Kōchōrō Kunisada (香蝶楼国貞)
Publisher: Sanoya Kihei
Censor's seal: kiwame
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
National Diet Library
Spencer Museum of Art
Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna
Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art - they date their copy to 1836
Bryn Mawr
Honolulu Museum of Art
Fujisawa Ukiyo-e Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art In Hokusai and Hiroshige: Great Japanese Prints from the James A. Michener Collection, Honolulu Academy of Arts on page 209 it says: "Shōno is the smallest station on the Tōkaidō Road. Because pilgrims visiting Ise Shrine did not pass Shōno and Ishiyakushi, its direct neighbor, these villages could not maintain a high level of tourist business. Shōno had only ten inns, and more than 50 percent of the population engaged in farming."
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This print is number 46 in this series. The curatorial files at the Museum für angewandte Kunst in Vienna say: "The picture of the Shōno 庄 Station station in the background was conceived by Kunisada himself and shows travelers on the bank of a river. The two men in front are heavily loaded with luggage; the man on the right, crossing a bridge, is a litter-bearer who carries an empty litter. Behind the men is a very small shrine, in front of which a rope is stretched. The woman in the foreground carries her luggage on her back in a cloth. In her hand she holds a pipe and a straw hat."
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Illustrated in a small color reproduction in Kunisada's Tokaido: Riddles in Japanese Woodblock Prints by Andreas Marks, Hotei Publishing, 2013, page 74, T24-46.
Sanoya Kihei (佐野屋喜兵衛) (publisher)
landscape prints (fūkeiga 風景画) (genre)
beautiful woman picture (bijin-ga - 美人画) (genre)