Fireworks at Ryōgoku, from the series One Hundred Views of Famous Places in Edo (1858): Art, History and Details

Fireworks at Ryōgoku, from the series One Hundred Views of Famous Places in Edo (1858) 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:

The Ryōgoku Bridge, a repeated subject of Hiroshige’s prints, spanned the Sumida River connecting bustling Edo (present-day Tokyo) neighborhoods. Here, Hiroshige devoted nearly half the composition to the night sky glittering with fireworks. Restaurants and other businesses along the riverbank frequently sponsored these dazzling displays during the 1850s. The pyrotechnics drew large crowds, who gathered atop the bridge, along the shore, in teashops, and on rented pleasure boats to enjoy the show.

Object facts

• Title: Fireworks at Ryōgoku, from the series One Hundred Views of Famous Places in Edo
• Date: 1858
• Creator attribution: Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Print
• Technique: color woodblock print
• Dimensions: Sheet: 33.7 x 22 cm (13 1/4 x 8 11/16 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1940.986

Collection credit

Bequest of James Parmelee

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William M., Henry S. Francis, Howard Hollis, Gertrude Underhill, Silvia A. Wunderlich, and Nell G. Sill. "The Bequest of James Parmelee." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 28, no. 2 (1941): 15-31.
• Grossman, Nancy, James T. Ulak, Marjorie Williams, and Laurence Channing. Art of Japan: Masterpieces from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2005.

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.