No. 120, July 2001

Selections from the NDL Collection

"Fifty-three Stages of the Tokaido" was the series which brought Hiroshige into prominence as the greatest landscape artist in succession to Hokusai who was thirty-seven years older. It was also his most representative masterpiece. At first, Takenouchi Magohachi of the Hoeido Publishing House and Tsuruya Kiemon of the Senkakudo Publishing House jointly published the series, but Senkakudo withdrew before the series was completed. Nowadays, it is known as the Hoeido edition.

Hiroshige had traveled the Tokaido, a distance of approximately 495 kirometers (308 miles), from Edo (now Tokyo) to Kyoto in the summer of 1832 as a member of the retinue taking a tribute of horses from the Shogun in Edo to the Emperor in Kyoto. He then made prints of the official fifty-three stations and the two posts at either end on the basis of sketches done during the journey. The series, depicting not only the scenery but also the vigorous life of the people on the road, had immediate popular appeal.

Although Hiroshige created many later "Tokaido Gojusan-tsugi" series, the Hoeido edition is surely the best. The NDL collection lacks only Hara (no. 14).

Thumbnails from 1. Nihonbashi (Edo) through 28. Fukuroi

Thumbnails from 29. Mitsuke through 55. Keishi (Kyoto)

High resolution images