Driving Rain at Shōno, from Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaidō (1833): Art, History and Details

Driving Rain at Shōno, from Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaidō (1833) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Utagawa Hiroshige’s design for this print captures the atmospheric qualities of rain and its effects on two groups of travelers. Three printing blocks were required to produce the three shades of gray used to suggest distance in the thickets of bamboo in the background. The publisher’s name, “Takenouchi,” and part of the series title, Fifty-Three Stations, are written on one person’s umbrella. Hiroshige created many different print series on the Tokaidō, a road that ran from Kyoto to Edo (now Tokyo). Shōno was a minor way station along this largely coastal route.

Object facts

• Title: Driving Rain at Shōno, from Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaidō
• Date: 1833
• Creator attribution: Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Print
• Technique: color woodblock print
• Dimensions: 38 x 25.4 cm (14 15/16 x 10 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1948.306

A detail from the museum

A large red seal with the publisher’s name, Takenouchi, is stamped on the left side of the print.

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. T. Wingate Todd from the Collection of Dr. T. Wingate Todd

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.