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With rich colour on every illustration, this reprint is made from one of the finest complete original sets of woodblock prints belonging to the Ota Memorial Museum of Art in Tokyo. Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) was one of the last great artists in the ukiyo-e tradition. His greatest talent was in creating landscapes of his native Edo (modern-day Tokyo) and his final masterpiece was a series known as "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo" (1856-1858). This resplendent complete collection pairs each of the 120 illustrations with a description, allowing readers to plunge themselves into Hiroshige's beautifully vibrant landscapes. Literally meaning "pictures of the floating world", ukiyo-e refers to the famous Japanese woodblock print genre that originated in the 17th century and is practically synonymous with the Western world's visual characterisation of Japan. Because they could be mass produced, ukiyo-e works were often used as designs for fans, New Year's greeting cards, single prints and book illustrations, and traditionally they depicted city life, entertainment, beautiful women, kabuki actors, wrestlers, and spectacular landscapes. Chinese binding in bookcase 25 x 34 cm, 302 pages. Text in English, French, German.