KUWANA. 42nd Station of the "53 Stations on the Road to Tōkaidō" by Hiroshige

One of our mother’s prints of the famous “53 Stations on the Road to Tōkaidō" by Utagawa Hiroshige. Bought in Tokyo around 1946, as both she, from New Zealand Air Force and father, with Australian Diplomatic Corps, were stationed there immediately after the war (and where I was born).

The “publisher” of this particular print is the chop, or seal (top right), because they are woodcuts and different publishers would have printed off the wood cuts. I presume values differ for differing publishers.

I previously translated “Kuwana” (Above left; “Sāngmíng" in Chinese) as a Tea name, because the character above at the top of the “Kuwana” is a weird way of writing the character, a Japanese way, and it could have been “arrive” 来 lai, or could have been “tea” 茶 cha, but is in fact “mulberry”, 桑 sāng, as in the plant eaten by silkworms. Klar?

The most complete listing I’ve found of all the 53 stations is on Wikipedia.

Our Mum does have some more of these. Pity they didn’t get a whole set in 1946! I am a very big fan of this “ukiyo-e” Japanese art. Jing claims it originated in Ming China. Maybe; I don’t argue. It’s true that much of Japanese is from China, characters (Kanji 汉子) included. Though sometimes they write them weird…. (but always pretty). [Japanese Bonsai is also from China!]. 

“Chop” is the Hong Kong word for a Seal. On an art work, usually in red. Widely used by companies, to this day. I’ve carved my own chops to seal my calligraphy.