New Year’s Eve Fox Fires at the Changing Tree (Ōji shozoku enoki omisoka no kitsunebi), from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei)

Arts of Asia

1857

Utagawa Hiroshige 歌川広重
Japanese, 1797-1858

Unlike most prints by Utagawa Hiroshige, this work is based on folklore. Japanese tradition holds that on New Year’s Eve, foxes gather at a specific tree near the Oji Inari Shrine in preparation for a visit to the site. On the way there, the foxes produce distinctive flames from their mouths that the local farmers can use to predict the crops of the coming year. The artist incorporated many different shades of gray to set off the barely visible fires coming from some 60 foxes approaching the shrine. Their flickering light is echoed by stars visible through the bare branches of the Changing Tree, which survives to this day.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of Asia

Artist: Utagawa Hiroshige
Title: New Year’s Eve Fox Fires at the Changing Tree (Ōji shozoku enoki omisoka no kitsunebi), from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei)
Place: Japan (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1857
Medium: Color woodblock print; ōban
Dimensions: 33.3 × 21.8 cm (13 1/8 × 8 9/16 in.)
Credit Line: Clarence Buckingham Collection
Reference Number: 1925.3765
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/26617/manifest.json

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New Year’s Eve Fox Fires at the Changing Tree (Ōji shozoku enoki omisoka no kitsunebi), from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei)

Currently Off View

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.