The Snowy Garden (1854): Art, History and Details

The Snowy Garden (1854) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858); Utagawa Kunisada (Japanese, 1786–1865).

The work and its context

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

These prints depict an episode from A Rustic Genji, a Japanese graphic novel based on the 11th-century classic The Tale of Genji. Three maidservants are making a giant snow rabbit while the protagonist of A Rustic Genji, Ashikaga Jiro Mitsuuji, stands in the snow with a woman who is possibly his lover. Stylistic hallmarks tell us that Utagawa Kunisada was responsible for the figures and the giant snow rabbit and Utagawa Hiroshige designed the background landscape. This collaboration—both artists signed the prints—on a Genji-related work targeted a broader audience by capitalizing on each artist’s individual strengths.

Object facts

• Title: The Snowy Garden
• Date: 1854
• Creator attribution: Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858); Utagawa Kunisada (Japanese, 1786–1865)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Print
• Technique: Triptych of color woodblock prints, ink and color on paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 35.6 x 75 cm (14 x 29 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1940.989

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 (February 1941): 15–31.
• Baatsch, Henri-Alexis, and Hiroshige Andō. Hiroshige. London: Thames & Hudson, 2025.

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.