About This Print
Source:Information on this station taken from the wikipedia article "53 Stations of the Tōkaidō."The last print in this series of 581 prints titled Fifty-three Stations of the Tôkaidô Road issued in October 1865, depicting Dairi, the Imperial Palace in Kyōto.
The characters 大尾 (daibi), "end", appear in the right-most yellow rectangular cartouche in the bottom left of the print; and this print brings us to the end of our long journey to Kyoto, the imperial capital. Two prints in this series are devoted to Kyoto, one showing the Great Sanjō Bridge the terminus of the Tōkaidō, as Nihonbashi in Edo was the start, the other, this print, giving us a bird's eye view of our travelers arriving outside the courtyard of Dairi, the Imperial Palace.
Along with print number 1 in the series, depicting Nihonbashi, this print bears a round aratame seal with the year (1865, year of the ox) and the month (tenth.) This leads me to believe that the series was meant to be sold as a set and not individually.
1 The 58 prints are made up of the 55 views of the 53 stations (includes two alternate states of prints for Minakuch station and Ishibe station) plus the Nihonbashi starting point print and two Kyoto terminus point prints.
About the Series
See the section titled "The 1865 Series Tōkaidō gojūsan eki (Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō)" under Utagawa Hiroshige II (1826-1869) for details on this series.Print Details
| IHL Catalog | #518 |
| Title or Description | Kyōto, Dairi (Kyōto, Dairi 京都 内裏 ) |
| Series | Fifty-three Stations of the Tôkaidô Road (東海道五拾三駅 Tôkaidô gojûsan eki) |
| Artist | Utagawa Hiroshige II (1826-1869) |
| Signature | Risshō ga |
| Seal | none |
| Publication Date | 1865 (Keiô 1), 10th month |
| Publisher | Maruya Tetsujirō |
| Impression | good |
| Colors | good |
| Condition | poor - minor mounting remnants where previously mounted along top; fading and soiling throughout. |
| Genre | ukiyo-e, fûkei-ga |
| Miscellaneous | |
| Format | vertical chûban |
| H x W Paper | 9 5/8 x 7 1/4 in. (17.5 x 23.5 cm) |
| Literature | |
| Collections This Print | Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 11.20705; Art Research Center, Ritsumeikan University arcUP2921 and arcUP3043 |
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