Fox Fires on New Year's Eve at the Changing Tree in Oji (Oji shozoku enoki omisoka no kitsunebi), from the series "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei)" (1857): Artwork and History

Fox Fires on New Year's Eve at the Changing Tree in Oji (Oji shozoku enoki omisoka no kitsunebi), from the series "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei)" (1857) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Utagawa Hiroshige 歌川 広重 Japanese, 1797-1858.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

Unlike most prints by Utagawa Hiroshige, this design is based on folklore. Japanese tradition holds that on New Year’s Eve, foxes gather at a specific tree near the Oji Inari Shrine in preparation for a visit to the shrine. On the way there, these foxes produce distinctive flames, which the local farmers use to predict the harvest of the coming year. Different shades of gray are used to represent the scene, set off by the orange of the flames. Stars are just visible through the bare branches of the Changing Tree, which survives in Tokyo to this day.

Object facts

• Title: Fox Fires on New Year's Eve at the Changing Tree in Oji (Oji shozoku enoki omisoka no kitsunebi), from the series "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei)"
• Date: 1857
• Artist attribution: Utagawa Hiroshige 歌川 広重 Japanese, 1797-1858
• Place of origin: Japan
• Medium: Color woodblock print; oban
• Dimensions: 35 × 23 cm (13 3/4 × 9 1/16 in.)
• Type: Print
• Department: Arts of Asia
• Reference number: 1961.144

Collection credit

Gift of Chester W. Wright

View the original

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.