One Hundred Famous Views of Edo
New Year’s Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree, Ōji
王子装束ゑの木大晦日の狐火 · Ōji shōzoku enoki Ōmisoka no kitsunebi
Utagawa Hiroshige · 1857
What it is
New Year’s Eve, by legend: the foxes of the Kantō gather under the old hackberry tree at Ōji, each breathing a pale flame, to dress themselves before proceeding to Inari’s shrine — the fires multiplying away into the dark fields.
Why it matters
The one purely supernatural scene in the series and its closing note: farmers watched from a distance on this night and counted the foxfires to divine the coming year’s harvest.
What to notice
Each fox is lit only by its own flame — the light touches muzzle and breast and nothing else; far across the black fields, more fires approach in twos and threes.
One night a year, the fields belong to the foxes.
The record
- Artist
- Utagawa Hiroshige 歌川広重 (1797–1858)
- Series
- One Hundred Famous Views of Edo
- Date
- 1857
- Publisher
- Uoya Eikichi
- Medium
- woodblock print; ink and color on paper
- Source
- The Art Institute of Chicago · 1961.144
- bokashi
Impression note. A deep-night design: the darkness is built from layered graded blues and grays wiped by hand, and impressions differ in how the foxfires glow against it; the flames and stars are reserves of bare paper. Impression variance is real — printings differ in wiping and fading — and choosing the finest openly held impression is the curatorial act.
Public domain; faithfully reproduced.
Bring it home
Printed to order on EMA matte art paper, 200gsm.
From the same series
One Hundred Famous Views of EdoSudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and AtakeUtagawa Hiroshige · 1857
One Hundred Famous Views of EdoPlum Estate, KameidoUtagawa Hiroshige · 1857
One Hundred Famous Views of EdoAsakusa Ricefields and Torinomachi FestivalUtagawa Hiroshige · 1857
One Hundred Famous Views of EdoMoon Pine, UenoUtagawa Hiroshige · 1857The road at your moment — Painted Earth’s ukiyo-e style pack.