Outbreak of Fire Seen from Hisamatsu-cho (Hisamatsu-chō kara miru shukka 久松町ニ而見る出火),

1881 [Meiji 14]

1881 [Meiji 14]

Asia, Japan

Outbreak of Fire Seen from Hisamatsu-chō
(Hisamatsu-chō yori miru shukka久松町ニ而見る出火).

This print depicts the fire that broke out in Tokyo on the evening of February 11, 1881, just fifteen days after the fire at Ryōgoku Bridge, which is the subject of our Kiyochika painting (PUAM 2009-77). The flames in the background appear very compelling against the dark foreground. The panicked crowd on the devastating night is well depicted in the dense foreground. On the lower left, the artist signed his name, “Kobayashi Kiyochika,” on the wall of a burning house. Kiyochika went out into the night to sketch the fire. He designed this print based on one of his watercolor sketches (see image on the right).