Hamamatsu, Winter Scene

The artwork

On a winter's day a few travellers warm themselves around a fire at the foot of a great tree, and the white smoke rises along the trunk up to the sky. You receive it printed on handmade Amalfi paper, in a handmade frame.

• The reddish brown of the trunk, the grey of the smoke and the pale green of the winter fields.
• A warm, cosy scene, perfect in a living room or an attic room.
• A gift for anyone who loves winter, the countryside and Japan.

It belongs to the Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō, the series that made Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), the best loved landscape artist of Japan, famous, published around 1833-1834 by the publisher Hōeidō. The Tōkaidō was the great road that linked Edo, today's Tokyo, with Kyoto, with fifty-three post stations where travellers stopped. Hamamatsu was a castle town on the plain, near the sea.

The Japanese title speaks of a bare winter landscape: the fields are dry, the distant trees are poles without leaves. In the foreground a group of people huddle around the fire to keep warm, while a traveller in a large straw hat stops to watch. Hiroshige places the tree almost in the centre, and the white smoke divides the picture in two: on the left the fields and the haystacks, on the right the roofs of the town. Our reproduction comes from the impression in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

In a living room or an attic room it brings the warmth of a winter fire. A gift for anyone who loves country life.

Unique quality material

Print on handmade Amalfi paper
Sheet size: 29 x 42 cm (11.4 x 16.5 in)
With frame: 31 x 44 cm (12.2 x 17.3 in)
Material: artwork printed on very fine handmade Amalfi paper with deckled edges
Frame: dark brown with gold fillet, handmade, with glass