Okazaki: Yahagi Bridge, from the series: "Fifty-three Stations of the Tôkaidô Road"

In addition to its masterpieces of European art, the Kunsthalle Bremen also has an internationally renowned collection of Japanese color prints dating from the 17th to the 19th century that comprises over 600 works on paper as well as block books. These were assembled in Japan at the beginning of the 20th century by the Berlin art historian Friedrich Perzy´nski at the behest of Heinrich Wiegand, general director of Norddeutscher Lloyd, and Gustav Pauli, the first director of the Kunsthalle Bremen. They contain rare works by Okumura Masanobu, Tôshôsai Sharaku, Katsushika Hokusai, and Andô Hiroshige. The bequest of the Bremen collector Johann Friedrich Lahmann of 1937 rounded out the Kunsthalle’s original holdings with further valuable works. The print by Okumura Masanobu, with its restrained colors, is a late monochrome print in black, which was subsequently colored by hand. It shows the famous 9th–10th century Waka poetess Ono no Komachi washing verses from her collection of poems in order to refute a wrongful accusation of plagiarism and to prove her opponents guilty of the intrigue. Whereas portrayals of beautiful women and Kabuki actors dominated polychrome prints of the late 18th century, landscapes received increasing attention in the 19th century. The 53 stations of the Tôkaidô, the road connecting Edo (present-day Tokyo) with Kyoto, were frequently executed motifs. Hiroshige’s woodcut of intense colors shows travelers crossing the Yahagi Bridge near Okazaki, the 38th station of the Tôkaidô, southeast of Nagoya.