Dreamscapes. The fifty-three stations of the Tokaido

As part of the refresh of the Japanese gallery, MAO present the first of three selections from the Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō by Utagawa Hiroshige, one of the greatest masterpieces of nineteenth-century Japanese art, owned by UniCredit. This first rotation of nineteen prints will be followed in the coming months by two further selections of eighteen woodcuts each.

The project is part of a programme of rotations and dynamic presentations of works in the MAO collection. The present rotation offers a fresh reading of The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō by Hiroshige. The result of collaboration with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), the exhibit takes an ecologically sustainable approach to exhibition planning, in line with the orientation developed by MAO in recent years aimed to leverage curatorial thinking and scholarship for the mindful use of museum resources. The series in the MAO collection is identical to the one at the MMFA. This makes it possible to organise an exhibition in which it is not the works that travel, but the curatorial vision and accompanying educational programme.

The project is curated by Laura Vigo, conservator of Asian art at the MMFA, and draws on the educational material developed by the Canadian museum for the display of the series in 2024, presented at that time with the same interpretative point of view.

Created in 1833 and published by Takenouchi Magohachi of the publishing house Hōeidō, the series was an immediate success, revolutionising the world of ukiyo-e woodblock prints. Printed in more than 15,000 copies, the Tōkaidō became an Edo-period bestseller, accessible to all. The individual prints cost the same as a bowl of ramen and were purchased, hung and often forgotten, to then be rediscovered and consecrated as works of art in the West in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Admission included in the ticket to the permanent collections.