Original woodblock print - Paper - Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) - From the series 'Soga monogatari zue' 曽我物語図会 (Illustrated Guide to the Tale of the Soga Brothers) - Japan - 1843-47 (Tenpō 14-Kōka 4) Reasonable condition, foxing, worn blocks, wear on margins See British Museum: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1967-0619-0-3-9 The 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō are the rest areas along the Tōkaidō, which was a coastal route that ran from Nihonbashi in Edo(Tokyo)to Sanjō Ōhashi in Kyoto. A lot of famous artists, like Utagawa Hiroshige, also painted this. The Hōeidō edition of the Tōkaidō is Hiroshige’s best known work, and the best sold ever ukiyo-e Japanese prints. Hiroshige’s work came to have a marked influence on Western painting towards the close of the 19th century as a part of the trend in Japonism. Western artists closely studied Hiroshige’s compositions, and some, such as van Gogh, painted copies of Hiroshige’s prints. It has been estimated that Hiroshige created more than 5,000 prints and that as many as 10,000 copies were made from some of his woodblocks.Hiroshige was a less-striking artistic personality but frequently achieved equivalent masterpieces in his own calm manner.Possessing the ability to reduce the pictured scene to a few simple, highly decorative elements, Hiroshige captured the very essence of what he saw and turned it into a highly effective composition.There was in his work a human touch that no artist of the school had heretofore achieved.