Ando Hiroshige
Japanese (1797 - 1858) Primary

Sankan o matswarete i o sekimen ni shirusu 伏三韓皇威銘石面 (Having Conquered the Three Kingdoms, the Empress Inscribes Her Authority on a Rock Face), from the series Honcho nenreki zue 本朝年歴図会 (Illustrated Guide to the History of Japan)

Edo
1847-1852

Sheet
14 3/4 x 9 1/2 in. (37.465 x 24.13 cm)

This object has the following keywords:

• Edo - Refers to the period and style that developed from the unification of Japan in 1600 until the end of the shogunal dynasty in 1868. During this period, economic expansion encouraged the rise of an educated merchant class who created their own forms of literature and theater as well as new schools of painting and woodblock printing. A wide diversity of pictorial subjects and styles developed during this period and many 19th century Western artists were influenced by them.
• emperors - Sovereigns or supreme monarchs of an empire, which is a political unit that comprises a number of territories or nations and is ruled by a single supreme authority. The use of the term is often restricted to reference to such supreme authorities in only certain parts of the world, including the ancient Roman empire, the Early Christian Roman empire, and the empires of Austria-Hungary, China, Japan, Morocco, India, Asia Minor, and Germany. The rulers of conglomerate political states in other parts of the world are generally known by other titles. The term "emperors" always refers to males, while "empresses" refers to female rulers.
• empresses - Refers to female sovereigns of empires, which are political units that comprise a number of territories or nations and are ruled by a single supreme authority. The term may also refer to the wives and widows of emperors.
• legends - Stories handed down by tradition from earlier times, usually concerned with a real person, place, or event, and popularly regarded as historical although not entirely verifiable.
• myths - Individual stories derived from a mythology; distinguished from historical accounts in that they are considered by current scholars to lack a determinable basis of fact or natural explanation; typically concerning a being, hero, deity, or event and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature.
• oban - Japanese prints of a standard size about 15 3/4 by 10 1/2 inches.
• reading - Using sight or touch to take in the sense of words or symbols in printed or written matter, either silently or aloud.
• royalty - Class within the nobility consisting of those who are descended from or related to a monarch or line of monarchs.
• Ukiyo-e - Distinctive genre in painting and other media, but most prominently in woodblock printing. It arose in the Edo period (1600-1868) and built up a broad popular market among the middle classes. Subject matter typically focused on brothel districts and kabuki theatres, with formats ranging from single sheet prints to book illustrations. Generally, the style is characterized by a mixture of the realistic narrative of the Kamakura period and the mature decorative style of the Momoyama and Edo periods. Distinctive styles and specialties in subject matter were developed by different schools throughout the period.
• woodcuts - Prints made using the process of woodcut, which is a relief process in which the design is cut into and printed from the plank side of a wood block; distinct from "wood engraving (process)," which is a relief process using the grain end of a wood block.
• writing - Forming or producing letters to record the ideas which characters and words express or to communicate the ideas by visible signs.
• yoko-e - In Japanese printing, a sheet of paper that is in landscape format (height is smaller than width).