** An impression of this design was recently sold by a major gallery for €1,450, reflecting the strong demand for original Hiroshige prints. This lot offers the chance to acquire an original Hiroshige impression with no reserve price. ** Artist: Utagawa Hiroshige I (1797–1858) Series: Gojūsan tsugi meisho zue (Famous Sights of the Fifty-three Stations), known as the Vertical Tōkaidō, No. 2 Signature: Hiroshige hitsu Publisher: Tsutaya Kichizō (Kōeidō) Seals: aratame censor seal and date seal Hare 7 (7th month of Ansei 2, 1855) Technique: Original Japanese woodblock print (nishiki-e) Format: Ōban tate-e, 37 x 25 cm __________________________________________________________ CONDITION The colours are fairly well preserved and the impression reads well with some fading and soiling on the margins. The paper is firm and subtle. Fine print overall! Please check the images carefully! __________________________________________________________ About the print Shinagawa was the first post station on the Tōkaidō, the highway linking Edo with Kyoto. This view is taken from Goten-yama, a hill above the station. Yoshino cherry trees were planted there in the Kanbun era (1661–73), and by the early 18th century the hill was one of Edo’s best-known places for cherry-blossom viewing. Hiroshige returned to the site many times over his career. The print appeared in the 7th month of 1855, shortly after a major change to the hill. After Commodore Perry’s arrival in 1853, the shogunate dug away large parts of Goten-yama and used the earth to build the Shinagawa Daiba, a group of island fortresses in Edo Bay. Contemporary viewers would have known the site both as a cherry-blossom spot and as part of Edo’s new coastal defence. The Vertical Tōkaidō was one of Hiroshige’s last major landscape series. Unlike his famous horizontal Hōeidō Tōkaidō of the 1830s, it uses the upright ōban format, which allowed him to rework familiar stations as tall compositions with a deep view into the distance. This sheet is from the first edition period, with the 1855 date seal intact.