PROPERTY OF A EUROPEAN COLLECTOR

Kitagawa Utamaro (1753?-1806)
The Statue of Fugen (Fugen-zo), 1790
An illustrated anthology, 1 volume (complete) with original dark blue covers painted with gold with bands of mist, and in silver and orange with rows of wild chrysanthemums, original title-slip, the book with 10 leaves, comprising 1 double-page preface signed Tsuburi no Hikaru, dated third month 1790, 5 double-page illustrations depicting famous beauty spots for enjoying hanami [flower-viewing], 5 double-pages of kyoka and the publisher's colophon Koshodo (Tsutaya Juzaburo), and signed Kitagawa Utamaro ga with an unidentified collector's seal on the last page
25.4 x 18.2cm.

Provenance
The Adolphe Stoclet Collection

Please note this lot is the property of a consumer. See H1 of the Conditions of Sale.

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Lot Essay

This volume represents flowers from a "Snow, Moon and Flowers" series and all the kyoka poems compiled by Tsuburi Hikaru are on the theme of cherry-blossoms. The illustrations all depict beauty spots famous for cherry-blossom.

The views illustrated are:
The central boulevard of the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter (Yoshiwara naka-no-cho)
The hills at Ueno (Ueno sannai)
Drunken revellers returning from flower viewing (Suitai zu)
Gotenyama (Gotenyama)
Flower-viewing in Kyoto (Kyo no hanami)

For a copy in the collection of the British Museum, museum number 1948,0508,0.33, go to www.britishmuseum.org/research

For further reading see Shugo Asano and Timothy Clark, The Passionate Art of Kitagawa Utamaro, (British Museum Press, London, 1995), no. 474