Lot Essay
The depiction of whale is extremely rare in Japanese art and not so many examples are known.
The renown print artist from the same period, Utagawa Hiroshige II (1826-1869) also worked on the same subject in one of his works Hizen Goto geiryo no zu (View of a Whale Hunt at Goto in Hizen Province) from the series Shokoku meisho hyakkei (One Hundred Famous Views in the Various Provinces). The print with this impression is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, accessible online at https://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/196846?search_no=1=40
The renown print artist from the same period, Utagawa Hiroshige II (1826-1869) also worked on the same subject in one of his works Hizen Goto geiryo no zu (View of a Whale Hunt at Goto in Hizen Province) from the series Shokoku meisho hyakkei (One Hundred Famous Views in the Various Provinces). The print with this impression is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, accessible online at https://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/196846?search_no=1=40