This pair of hanging scrolls shows two women enjoying a summer’s evening cool on the right, and standing in front of a snow scenery on the left scroll. The composition is almost identical to a set of hanging scrolls at the Berlin Museum of Asian Art. Toyohiro is known for repeatedly painting the same figures across numerous works, but in addition to this the backgrounds in the present scrolls and the ones in Berlin are also highly reminiscent. About the right scroll of the Berlin version, the description in Hizo ukiyo-e taikan 12 reads: “In the distant background, one sees the ocean gradually fading into the sky.” The Hizo ukiyo-e taikan names these scenes “Lyrical impression of Fukagawa” and “Women of Edo,” and thus associates them with the lower reaches of the Sumida river. Yet, on the opposing shore, no houses or mansions are to be seen. Instead, there are fields and mountains, contradicting the idea of the scrolls showing the lower reaches of the Sumida river.

Another Toyohiro work of beautiful ladies at a riverside, the ukiyo-e painting Enjoying the Evening Cool at Ryogoku (Edo-Tokyo Museum), features similar motifs in the background, namely the small roof boat and the bow of a large yakatabune pleasure boat. Images of cooling off in the evening at Ryogoku Bridge were commonplace in ukiyo-e, and such boats would invariably be part of the scenery. Nevertheless, the scene shown here seems not to be in the proximity of the Ryogoku Bridge.

Furthermore, Toyohiro’s Visit to Massaki Inari Shrine (Idemitsu Museum of Art), another work showing two beautiful ladies, features the Massaki Inari Shrine on the right of the background, and the Sumida River with a roof boat and the large yakatabune. Moreover, small river boats similar to the present work are shown. Each of them transporting a single patron to Yoshiwara, they must be heading to the San’yabori canal. Also just as in the present work, the left bank of the river shows groves of trees, and a mountain resembling Mount Tsukuba appears in the distant background. Among Toyohiro’s prints, Eight Views of Edo: Evening Rain at Massaki employs a similar background, so it is obvious it was designed with intention. That the distant groves must represent the Suijin Forest becomes apparent from comparing to a print by Toyohiro’s disciple Utagawa Hiroshige, Looking at Kawasekiya Village in Suijin Forest from the Area of Massaki (of the series One Hundred Views of Edo. The two beauties thus must be walking on the river banks near Massaki or Sanya, though—just as in Visit to Massaki Inari Shrine—the spatial relationship to the background is left ambiguous.

The woman on the right may be a maid of a tea house. Her apron is adorned with a pattern of ivy, suggesting that Toyohiro was perhaps thinking of Miyo of the Tsutaya tea house, who enjoyed great popularity during the Kansei era (1789–1801). The poetic inscription of the snow scene by Santo Kyoden, On a brisk winter’s day, the price of fugu rises just like the silvery blanket of snow, is taken from Kyoden’s satirical work The Potted Tree and the Dragon Palace (1793). Toyohiro’s Improvised Kyogen (Edoardo Chiossone Museum of Oriental Art, Genova), dated to the late Kansei era, shows a similar signature style as the present work. Since the seal is also the same, the present works likely date to the same time period.

Utagawa Toyohiro (ukiyo-e artist; 1773–1828)
Ukiyo-e artist of the late Edo period, born in Edo. Toyohiro was a senior disciple of Utagawa Toyoharu; together with Utagawa Toyokuni he counts as one of the “two pillars” of the Utagawa school. Ando Hiroshige was one of his students.
Santo Kyoden (author, ukiyo-e artist; 1761–1816) Gesaku (popular fiction) writer and ukiyo-e artist of the late Edo period, born in Edo. Kyoden was particularly known for his works in the kibyoshi (illustrated short prose) and sharebon (prose writing centered on the pleasure quarters) genres.