mheu, Historical Museum of the Urban Environment

The work

This print is one of a series of famous views of Tokyo, itself a revisiting of a series by the same name done some forty years previously by Utagawa Hiroshige, his master and father-in-law. At this time, Tokyo was already a megalopolis of over a million people and public transportation was therefore essential. As was his custom, Hiroshige III shows the shift towards Western ways that Japan embarked upon in the late 19^th century. Many of his prints show an electricity pole in the foreground, like the photos that modern tourists take in Japan. One notices that the coachman of this omnibus and some of the passengers are wearing Western-style hats.

The artist

Hiroshige III Utagawa

Hiroshige III, whose real name was Ando Tokubei, was a Japanese painter, draftsman and engraver, born in Tokyo in 1842 to a carpenter father, though later adopted by an art restorer. He met the engraver Utagawa Hiroshige and became his second pupil as well as his second son-in-law, and changed his name several times as was customary among Japanese painters. Hiroshige III was very active after the death of his master in 1865, a time when Japan was opening up to the West. His nishiki-e prints (polychrome woodcuts) show the profound changes sweeping through the country and promote Japanese artisans. He died in 1894.