Height: 23.50 centimetres

Length: 32.70 centimetres (opening)

Width: 16.60 centimetres (closed)

Clark 1992

The postscript to the album by one 'Houdo shujin', dated October 1892, explains that his father had been fond of painting and had studied with Hiroshige and that he had found these sheets of paintings by the master preserved at the bottom of a chest and had them bound into an album. Though unsigned, the ten abbreviated sketches are certainly in Hiroshige's most convivial style, and other versions of several of the compositions bearing a Hiroshige seal are in the collections of the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (Freer Gallery of Art (eds), 'The Freer Gallery of Art II: Japan', Tokyo, Kodansha, n.d. (?1972), no. 66) and Library of Congress (Lee 1984, vol. II, pls 4, 11, 19), confirming the attribution. It was customary for teachers to make copies, often unsigned, of previously worked-out compositions for pupils to use as study material ('tehon'). The ten subjects in the album are:

1 Sambaso dancer. 2 Man dreaming of pleasure quarters. 3 (?)Chinese with an elephant in a procession. 4 Iwafuji striking Onoe with the sandal, from the Kabuki play 'Kagamiyama kokyo no nishiki-e' (illustrated). 5 Shinto priest dancing. 6 Woman with a parcel walking past a large lantern in the street. (?)Ohatsu, the faithful maid. 7 Sukeroku with his umbrella, seen from behind. 8 Blossoming cherry trees on riverbank. 9 The Third Princess's cat running out from under a blind. 10 Bust portrait of a courtesan as Daruma.

Literature: Hillier, Jack. 'Hokusai Drawings'. London, Phaidon, 1966, pls 64, 66. Hillier, Jack, 'The Harari Collection of Japanese Paintings and Prints'. Vol. 2, London, Lund Humphries, 1970, no. 183.