Shower of Rain at Nihonbashi Bridge

Title

Shower of Rain at Nihonbashi Bridge
Series

Famous Views of the Eastern Capital
Artist/maker

Utagawa Hiroshige I (1797 - 1858) (designer)
Associated people

Sanoya Kihei (active c. 1801 - 1878) (publisher)
Associated place

Tōkyō (place of creation)

Tōkyō (place of publication)

Mount Fuji (subject)

Tōkyō (Nihonbashi Bridge) (subject)
Date

1832 - 1838
Material and technique

woodblock print, with bokashi (tonal gradation)
Material index

paper
Technique index

colour woodcut
Object type

print
Dimensions

mount 40.6 x 55.7 cm (height x width)
print 25.6 x 37.5 cm (height x width)
27 x 39.5 cm (height x width)
No. of items

1
Credit line

Presented by Mrs E. M. Allan and Mr and Mrs H. N. Spalding from the Herbert H. Jennings Collection, 1952.
Museum location

not on display
Museum department

Eastern Art
Accession no.

EAX.4834

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Catalogue text

All distances in Japan were and are measured from the bridge at Nihonbashi; thus it was the first in any Tokaido or Kisokaido series. Here the vertical lines, later to be imitated by Post-Impressionist painters, and the hunched miserable look of the pedestrians, emphasise the extent of the downpour. Hiroshige made several series of this title (Tōto Meisho); this is not the earliest.

In: Impey, Oliver, Hiroshige's Views of Mount Fuji: A Selection of Woodblock Print Views of Mount Fuji, Including Examples from the Series 'The Thirty-six views of Mount Fuji', of 1858-9, by Hiroshige, 1797-1858 (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2001)

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