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Suruga-chō (No. 30) from the series Thirty-Six Views of Tokyo

Shōsai Ikkei (fl. c. 1870s)
 

Japanese Color Woodblock Print

Suruga-chō (No. 30)

from the series Thirty-Six Views of Tokyo

by Shōsai Ikkei, 1871

No. 2 Not Aware Man and Aware Man from the series A Didactic Mirror of Good and Evil


IHL Cat. #1626

About This Print


In 1857 the same publisher, Tsutaya Kichizō, issued Utagawa Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei), which contained the print Suruga-chō, shown below.  Fourteen years later he published Ikkei's Thirty-Six Views of Tokyo (the re-named Edo) whose 30th print in the series gives us a similar view of Suruga-chō with the Mitsui Echigoya store (present day Mitsukoshi) occupying both sides of the street in the foreground and Mt. Fuji dominating the background with Edo Castle in the mid-ground.

Utagawa Hiroshige 
No. 8 Suruga-cho from the series Meisho Edo Hyakkei, 1856

In commenting on the Hiroshige print the Brooklyn Museum notes: "Mid-day scene looking past Edo's premier store, the Echigoya, (today Mitsukoshi Department Store and still the most venerable and most fashionable of all the great merchandisers of Tokyo). The name "Suruga-cho" was taken from the view itself, after the province (today Shizuoka Prefecture) in whose territory the summit of Mount Fuji lay. The circle design repeated along the store is the Mitsui (family name) trademark. Echigoya (the name designating the Mitsui family origins in the province which is now Niigata Prefecture) occupied both corners of Suruga-cho, as seen here from the main Nihonbashi thoroughfare. The store on the left (today the department store, renamed Mitsukoshi in 1904 by taking one character each from "Mitsui" and "Echigoya") dealt in silk fabrics, while the one on the right (today the Mitsui Bank) dealt in nonsilk fabrics. Among the diverse figures in the street are men shouldering large blue packs filled with dry goods ready for delivery."

Print Details

 IHL Catalog
 #1626
 Title or Description Suruga-chō (No. 30)
 するか町 (三十)
 Series Thirty-Six Views of Tokyo
 東京三十六景 Tōkyō sanjūrokukei  
 Artist Shōsai Ikkei (fl. 1860-late 1870s)
 Signature
昇齋筆  Shōsai hitsu
 Seal no artist's seal
 Publication Date
May 1871
未五改  combined date-aratame censor seal
ram 5 aratame
 Publisher
蔦屋吉蔵  Tsutaya Kichizō [Marks: 556; seal 25-427]
seal reading 蔦吉板 Tsutakichi han
 Carver 
 Impression excellent
 Colors excellent
 Condition fair - multiple small holes throughout; left margin trimmed to image; backed
 Genre ukiyo-e; meisho-e
 Miscellaneous
三十 print number in the series shown on lower right margin
 Format chūban 
 H x W Paper 
 6 7/8 x 9 1/16 in. (17.5 x 23 cm)
 H x W Image
 6 3/8 x 8 11/16 in. (16.2 x 22.1 cm)
 Literature 
 
 Collections This Print
 Tokyo Metropolitan Library 0421-K3