Collections: Asian Art: The Kawaguchi Ferry and Zenkoji Temple, No. 20 in One Hundred Famous Views of Edo

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The Kawaguchi Ferry and Zenkoji Temple, No. 20 in One Hundred Famous Views of Edo

• Artist: Utagawa Hiroshige (Ando), Japanese, 1797-1858
• Medium: Woodblock print
• Place Made: Japan
• Dates: 2nd month of 1857
• Period: Edo Period, Ansei Era
• Dimensions: Image: 13 3/8 x 9 in. (34 x 22.9 cm) Sheet: 14 3/16 x 9 1/4 in. (36 x 23.5 cm)
• Markings: No publisher's date or censor's seal visible, probably lost when left edge was trimmed.
• Signature: Hiroshige-ga
• Collections: Asian Art
• Museum Location: This item is not on view
• Accession Number: 30.1478.20
• Credit Line: Gift of Anna Ferris
• Image: Overall, 30.1478.20_IMLS_SL2.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
Utagawa Hiroshige (Ando) (Japanese, 1797-1858). The Kawaguchi Ferry and Zenkoji Temple, No. 20 in One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, 2nd month of 1857. Woodblock print, Image: 13 3/8 x 9 in. (34 x 22.9 cm) Sheet: 14 3/16 x 9 1/4 in. (36 x 23.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Anna Ferris, 30.1478.20 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 30.1478.20_IMLS_SL2.jpg)
• Catalogue Description: Scene of the Kawaguchi Ferry across the Arakawa River and Zenkoji Temple on the other side, half hidden by the title cartouche to the upper right. This temple was renowned for the practice of the periodic unveiling of its main image of Amida, which tended to rotate every seventeenth year, in the case of Kawaguchi's Zenkoji, and had been approved to start early in the Third Month of 1858 and was to last for sixty days. In those two months the normally quiet temple seen here would have been transformed into a booming entertainment village, with sideshows, acrobats and legal gambling. Scene shows rafts of lumber being poled upstream (contrary to the normal transport of lumber).