What was Japan like in 1853, when this portrait was started by Utagawa Hiroshige with one print from each of the 69 provinces. It is an outstanding picture book from just before photography.
Hiroshige travelled the Tōkaidō road to participate in an important procession in Kyoto in 1832 and published his 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō which was the most popular print series ever made in Japan, see the author's ISBN 9782919787647.
It was even more popular than Hokusai's series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, which had been recently published and which had influenced Hiroshige tremendously (ISBN 9782919787159 as hard cover).
The Famous Views from the Sixty-Odd Provinces contains some of Hiroshige's most beloved prints and he again uses the horizontal format he pioneered for landscape prints.
