MURA · THE COLLECTION · UTAGAWA HIROSHIGE

Kanbara: Evening Snow

Kanbara: Evening Snow is a colour woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige from The Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido, the Hoeido edition of 1833–34. Travellers make their way past snow-covered houses under a darkening sky. This impression, 24.1 by 36.8 cm, once belonged to Frank Lloyd Wright and is now in the Art Institute of Chicago.

Utagawa Hiroshige · c. 1833/34 · Color woodblock print; oban · Edo period · story written 25 September 2026

What you are looking at

A mountain village at nightfall, through which three people struggle under deep snow. Kanbara was the fifteenth of the fifty-three post stations on the Tokaido, the road linking the shogun's capital Edo with Kyoto; the site is now part of Shimizu ward in the city of Shizuoka. The scene is a puzzle. Kanbara lies in a temperate area warmed by the Kuroshio current, where even light snowfall is rare. Hiroshige often relied on existing prints and guidebooks, and it seems likely he used an image of a different, mountainous Kanbara in Gunma.

How it was made

Hiroshige was born in Edo in 1797 to a family of fire wardens and inherited his father's post at twelve. In 1832 he joined an official procession carrying horses from the shogun to the imperial court in Kyoto, travelling the length of the Tokaido and sketching along the way. On his return he began the series, fifty-five prints in all: one for each station plus the departure at Nihonbashi and the arrival at Kyoto. The first print was issued jointly by the publishers Hoeido and Senkakudo, the rest by Hoeido alone. Such prints sold new for twelve to sixteen copper coins, about the price of a pair of straw sandals or a bowl of soup. The series established the landscape print as a major theme of ukiyo-e and made Hiroshige the most successful printmaker of his era. He died in 1858.

Where it went

The impression belonged to the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, an enthusiastic collector of Hiroshige who staged the first retrospective of the artist's work at the Art Institute in 1906. He sold it to Clarence Buckingham of Chicago, a trustee of the museum; on Buckingham's death in 1913 it passed to his sisters Lucy Maud and Kate Sturges Buckingham, and in 1925 Kate gave his collection of Japanese prints to the Art Institute in his name. It was lent to Ukiyoe, Il Mondo Fluttuante at the Palazzo Reale in Milan in 2004. The design is also familiar as the cover of Weezer's 1996 album Pinkerton. The museum lists no current gallery for it.

Why it is in Mura

It belongs to Mura's Japanese Masters collection with a wintry mood: snow, quiet, and a darkening sky.