Sunset at Ryōgoku Bridge
1813
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
About the artist
1813
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Sunset at Ryōgoku Bridge is a 1813 by Katsukawa Shunsen, a Romanticism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a round picture of Ryōgoku Bridge at dusk: boats glide on dark water, stalls line the shore, and the sky glows faintly orange. The colors are so faded you can barely tell where the sun once set. A poem sits beside the scene, part of the print’s design. This kind of round print was meant to be pasted on a fan or a lantern. If you like this quiet river view, look up Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)—it’s full of prints just like it.
A view of boats and riverside stalls near the Ryōgoku Bridge is captured in a roundel. The scene is accompanied by a poem. Much faded today, traces of the colors used to indicate the last rays of the sun remain. The artist signed the print “design by Shunsen” (Shunsen ga), a name he used from New Year’s of 1806, after he became a student of Katsukawa Shun’ei (1762-1819). Around the year 1820, he took the name Shunkō II. He designed prints of beauties, actors, and landscapes. In his final years, he painted designs on ceramics.
Read the full account in the museum source.
