Mariko, the Famous Teahouse

The artwork

In front of a thatched teahouse two travellers sit eating, and beside them a plum tree begins to blossom against the pink sky. You receive it printed on handmade Amalfi paper, in a handmade frame.

• The pink of the sky, the green of the fields and the warm greys of the thatch.
• A quiet, welcoming scene, perfect in a kitchen, a dining room or an attic room.
• A gift for anyone who loves good food, travel 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. Mariko was a small village along the road.

The Japanese title says «famous teahouse», and its fame had a name: tororo-jiru, a soup of grated yam that travellers stopped on purpose to taste, and which the shop signs announce to passers-by. More than a century earlier the poet Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694), the most famous author of haiku, the short Japanese poems, had put together in a few lines the plum blossoms, the young greens and the soup of Mariko. Hiroshige plants a plum tree in bloom right next to the inn: anyone who knew those lines found them again in the print. Our reproduction comes from the impression in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

In a kitchen or a dining room it brings the pleasure of a stop on a journey. A gift for anyone who loves good food.

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