Hiroshige II - Kanaya

Hiroshige II

Kanaya, from the series The Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô)

The stage name is at the bottom of the rectangular cartouche in the top right corner, and the series title is at the top. The earliest prints in this series date from toward the middle of Hiroshige II's career, when he was about thirty-seven years old. At this point, he was still using the name 'Hiroshige', since his master Hiroshige I had died, and Hiroshige II had taken over the gō 'Hiroshige'.

He did two very similar series of this name, in the vertical chūban format; the ones in this series can be easily distinguished because the ones from this series are signed 'Hiroshige'. In all other respects (title cartouche format, etc), the two series are identical.

http://www.hiroshigeii.net/series/HTokaido.html

 Date: 1863