Utagawa Hiroshige – Peacock and Peonies, 1830s | Framed Giclée Print

A peacock stands in a bank of peonies, its tail running up the right edge of the sheet and out of the picture. The format is ōtanzaku — a tall, narrow panel of about 38 by 17.5 centimetres, the shape used for poem-slips and for pictures meant to hang in the narrow space between two posts.

Hiroshige is remembered for landscapes, but he made hundreds of bird-and-flower panels like this one, and they are the sheets in which his colour is boldest: a flat teal ground, the pink of the peonies laid on in two strengths, the eyes of the tail feathers printed in a blue that still reads as metal. The poem in the upper left belongs to the design, not to the catalogue.

What this is. A giclée reproduction printed with pigment inks. It is not a woodblock print and is not sold as one — a woodblock print is pulled by hand from cut cherry blocks, and the good impressions are in museums.

Scale
Original: 38 × 17.5 cm / 15.0 × 6.9 in — ōtanzaku, Art Institute of Chicago
40 × 50 cm / 15.7 × 19.7 in — original size, 1:1. Image 17.12 × 37.22 cm.

Provenance
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858), Peacock and Peonies, 1830s; colour woodblock print, ōtanzaku, 38 × 17.5 cm.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Clarence Buckingham Collection.

Where this comes from
The museum file, the measurements, and what we are allowed to sell: the record for this sheet.

The frame
Giclée on 200 gsm FSC-certified fine art paper, twelve pigment inks, white border. Slim black aluminium frame, glazed with clear plexiglass instead of glass, so it travels safely. Print and frame ship together in one package and are assembled on arrival. Part of the Hotel Collection — volume pricing from ten pieces.