100 Views of Edo # 73 Deluxe Edition by Ando Hiroshige

Artist: Ando Utagawa Hiroshige (1787-1858)

Woodblock Prints Title: The City Flourishing, Tanabata Festival (Shichû han'ei Tanabata Matsuri), from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei)

1st Publication: July 1857

Size: Vertical ôban; 34.3 x 22.7 cm (13 1/2 x 8 15/16 in.)

Date of this edition: July 1857

Publisher: Uoya Eikichi

Condition: Trimmed to the margins. Poor restoration job in 3 margins. Colors faded. Posthumously added red and yellow colors. Very good early impression, fair overall condition.

Notes: This is an extremely rare first edition, Deluxe edition with Mica in the roofs area. Usually, this technique was reserved for good customer or prestigious people, as the technology was fairly new, expensive and difficult to master.

More about this print: The Tanabata Festival, celebrated annually on the seventh day of the Seventh Month, derived from an ancient Chinese legend about the Celestial Weaving Girl (the star Vega) who crosses the Milky Way once a year to meet her beloved Cowherd (Altair).

By the late Edo period, the Festival had developed into a huge outdoor display of inscribed, multicolored sheets of paper and auspicious paper symbols attached to long green bamboo poles. Although this is the only print in the series that does not specify a place in the title, it represents the view from a very specific, very personal place: Hiroshige's own house.

Pictures: Pictures are taken outdoor, in the shade, to reflect true colors, without any enhancements of any kind. The last picture is taken indoor, with a light behind the print, to reveal the exact paper grain, holes if any, or other possible flaws.