• View of Mariko (<i>Mariko no zu</i>: 鞠子ノ図) from the chuban series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road (<i>Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi no uchi</i>: 東海道五十三次之内)
View of Mariko (<i>Mariko no zu</i>: 鞠子ノ図) from the chuban series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road (<i>Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi no uchi</i>: 東海道五十三次之内)
View of Mariko (<i>Mariko no zu</i>: 鞠子ノ図) from the chuban series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road (<i>Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi no uchi</i>: 東海道五十三次之内)
View of Mariko (<i>Mariko no zu</i>: 鞠子ノ図) from the chuban series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road (<i>Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi no uchi</i>: 東海道五十三次之内)
View of Mariko (<i>Mariko no zu</i>: 鞠子ノ図) from the chuban series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road (<i>Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi no uchi</i>: 東海道五十三次之内)

Utagawa Kunisada (歌川国貞) / Toyokuni III (三代豊国) (artist 1786 – 01/12/1865)

View of Mariko (Mariko no zu: 鞠子ノ図) from the chuban series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road (Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi no uchi: 東海道五十三次之内)

Print


ca 1838
Signed: Kōchōrō Kunisada (応需香蝶楼国貞)
Publisher: Sanoya Kihei
Censor's seal: kiwame
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
National Diet Library
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - 2nd state of Hiroshige's print
Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna
British Museum - Hiroshige's 'Mariko meibutsu chaya' version
Virginia Museum of Fine Art
Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art - they date their copy to 1836
Bryn Mawr
Honolulu Museum of Art
The Spencer Museum of Art
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen (Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde, Leiden) - via Ritsumeikan University
National Gallery, Prague Mariko is 3¼ miles from Fuchū. Famous for its tororojiru or yam soup. In fact, if you click on the Hiroshige jpeg we have added to this page and enlarge it you will see two signboards leaning against the front of the shop. One reads 'Meibutsu tororojiru' or 'Famous Yam Soup' and the other reads 'Sake sakana' or 'Sake and Fish'. Only one of these signs appears in the Kunisada version shown here.

The 'splotch' on the top of the roofline of the hut is meant to represent two crows, one facing front and the other facing the other way. This is almost impossible to make in the Kunisada print and not a lot clearer in the Hiroshige one.

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This is number 21 in the series. In the curatorial files at the Museum für angewandte Kunst in Vienna it says: "In the depiction of the Mariko 鞠 子 station (also called Maruko), Kunisada again adheres very closely to Hiroshige's model. In the foreground is a woman crouching on the floor. Her green kimono is decorated with red flowers. She is holding a pile of paper towels in her hand. Next to her is a lacquer rack with a hung water bowl."

It should also be noted that the bright pink Kunisada sky harkens back to the pink sky in the Hiroshige print. (See the link above.)

Gian Carlo Calza in his description in Hiroshige: The Master of Nature of the original Hiroshige print re-imagined in this scene said: "This is one of the better known images in the series with its intimate, simple and natural atmosphere.

The woodblock cutter initially made a mistake with the name of the village, an error that was corrected after the first few prints were made. It is not corrected in this one and thus know that it is one of the very first prints. The two guests at the teahouse could easily be Yaji and Kita, the two ribald mishap-prone protagonists of Jippensha Ikku's... great comic novel Shank's Mare... whose various tales inspired Hiroshige on more than one occasion. One of the two customers is greedily consuming his soup while his companion is drinking tea, waiting for the landlady who is bringing him a bowl of soup with her baby on her back. [The landlady and baby are not visible because of the kneeling bijin in the foreground of this Kunisada print.] Outside a stooped wayfarer is slowly resuming his journey after having stopped at the teahouse to eat." The placement of the long signboard naming the locale has been moved from the center in the Hiroshige print to the far left side of the teahouse here.

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In Tokaido Landscapes: The Path from Hiroshige to Contemporary Artists, 2011, #21, p. 33, speaking of the original Hiroshige print it says in a text by Sasaki Moritoshi: "The setting is the front of a thatch-roofed teahouse. Two travelers are sitting on a bench; the one facing forward has his mouth wide open, as he eats the yam soup for which the shop is famous. This is perhaps a reference to a scene in Jippensha Ikku's Tokaidōchū hizakurige (Shank's Mare), where the two main characters in this early nineteenth century travelogue order yam soup in Mariko.... The receding figure of a man draws the viewer's eye to the left, hinting at the open expanse that lies beyond the frame of the print."

Later in this volume is a section dedicated to Munakata Shiko's prints on the theme of the Tōkaidō Road. Of Mariko Munakata wrote: "There is a temple in the mountain just across the River Abe. Its bamboo grove was beautiful. I visited the master of this temple, who treated us to tea. Looking up, I saw a mountain behind the temple. Called Togeppō, or Moon-Spitting Peak, it looked just like its name. The mountain itself was not high, but its shape was lofty." It is possible that this is the mountain seen in these Kunisada and Hiroshige prints.

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In Hiroshige: l'art du voyage, Paris, 2012, p. 71 it says: "Les panneaux accrochés before the salon de thé annoncent ses diverses spécialités: le «poisson au saké», la «véritable spécialité locale de la soupe à l'igname râpé», meibutsu tororoshiru, et le «riz accompagné de thé», ochazuke, le plat le plus simple."

The main advertising sign leaning up against the far end of this establishment in the Kunisada print is exactly the same as the one centered in the Hiroshige example.

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In Masterworks of Ukiyo-e: Hiroshige, the 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō by Muneshige Narazaki. 1969, p. 48 the translator refers to the yam paste as being tororojiru. It also says: "When he made this drawing, Hiroshige may have had "Shank's Mare" in mind, where a similar scene is described, or he may have been thinking of a haiku by the poet Bashō: "Plum trees and rape are everywhere in blossom. This is the loveliest season, and the tororojiru must taste good at Mariko this time of the year." "

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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 67, T24-21.
Sanoya Kihei (佐野屋喜兵衛) (publisher)
landscape prints (fūkeiga 風景画) (author)