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I have inherited a set of 8 woodblock prints. I would appreciate any help in identifying artist, series, date and whether they are original, re-prints or other.

They all measure 10cm x 14.5cm and appear to be on some sort of wood fibre paper.

TIA

If your sizes are correct, they have to be reproductions. The original size of these prints was about 10 X 15 INCHES.

The prints are reproductions from Ando Hiroshige's famous series "The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road" (Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi no uchi 東海道五十三次之内) also known as The Great Tōkaidō. You have shown stations #36 Goyu: Women Stopping Travellers (Goyu, tabibito tomeru onna) 御油　旅人留女 and #39 Okazaki: Yahagi Bridge (Okazaki, Yahagi no hashi) 岡崎　矢矧之橋.

You can see the whole series at the link below:

https://www.hiroshige.org.uk/Tokaido_Series/Tokaido_Great.htm

Cheers,
Stan

URL Title :The Great Tōkaidō

Thanks for you reply Stan,

From what little I've learned of the subject in the couple of days since I found these, 'reproduction' is something of an ambiguous term, given that original woodblock images were designed to be reproduced by multiple publishers in varying formats (including some I've seen in the 'hagaki' size, I have. So reproduction could cover contemporary re-print, later reproduction, or 'fake' (something purporting to be that which it is not).

The question then is, which is mine? and is it possible to determine when the copy was made and by whom? The images I have are at least 60 years old (I know this, since they came from my mother and I have not seen them in my lifetime, and were found loose alongside a German book of "Japanishe Farbenholzschnitte" from 1950s.

I'm guessing from the vibrancy of the colours and the relative thickness of the paper compared with original examples I've seen online, that these prints are early (≤1950) 20th Century rather than 19th.

Is there a way of telling if these images were part of an official edition by a recognised publisher, and if so would they have any particular value in their own right (above say a postcard of the same image).

Personally, I hope they don't turn out to be valuable as that would give me a dilemma, and I like them as they are and hope to have them mounted and framed.

Any further light anyone can shed would be most welcome.

Frame them and enjoy them.

Cheers,
Stan

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