Geese descend over fishing boats on Lake Biwa's shore

A long skein of wild geese descends in formation over misty water near Katada on Lake Biwa, where a large sailboat under full sail and several smaller fishing craft cross the water. Low wooded hills and a village of reed-thatched houses on stilts line the far shore beneath a rounded mountain silhouette. A poem card and the series cartouche 'Ōmi Hakkei no uchi' ('Eight Views of Ōmi') appear at upper left, with the artist's signature and red seal at right. Katada's descending geese were one of the most celebrated of the eight classical views of Ōmi province.

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) was the last great master of the ukiyo-e landscape print. Born into a family of fire wardens in Edo, he turned to printmaking under Utagawa Toyohiro and found his subject in the roads and seasons of Japan — above all in the Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō (1833–34) and the One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (1856–58). His snow, rain and evening skies, and his bold near-and-far compositions, were studied closely by Van Gogh, Whistler and Monet. His prints are held by the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Printed as a museum-grade giclée on Hahnemühle fine art paper using 12-ink archival pigment printing. Available handframed in FSC-certified wood with optional float glass, or unframed. Ships worldwide with free delivery to 30+ countries.