Artist: Hiroshige Ando (1797-1858) Title: Hako Promontory in Chikuzen Province Series title: Famous Views of the Sixty-odd Provinces Publisher: Koshimuraya Heisuke Date: 1856-1858 Size: 35.9 x 24.1 cm Condition: Light wear and soiling, slightly trimmed, pigment spotted and minor stains around the edge of back and front, bottom margin restored, paper residue on the back. Hiroshige I was renowned as one of the most skilled landscape artists of his time. Following in the footsteps of his teacher, Toyohiro Utagawa, he embraced producing images of natural landscapes at a time when travel between provinces was becoming more common, and convenient. With this new ease of travel came the demand for guides to these foreign locales in the form of both writing and images. Hiroshige I' followed his groundbreaking 'Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido' with a long career of series of both serene, and bustling, landscapes. In 1853 he began his 'Famous Views of the Sixty Odd Provinces', a series of sixty-nine prints, each giving a view of a famous sight from each of the sixty-eight provinces, and the capital Edo. Taking views stretching across the whole of the country of the Japan at the time, it was a little window into what was available for those looking to travel to any province. The sandy peninsula depicted in this print is called 'Umi no nakamichi', or 'path in the middle of the sea'. The village Hakozaki is seen on the left and the torii gate of the Hakozaki shrine at the bottom right.