Eight Hand Shadows A2 Print

A reproduction of the Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige’s iconic Eight Shadow Figures print. Hiroshige was one of the last great masters of the traditional ukiyo-e woodblock style and this print is an example of ‘omocha-e’: an ukiyo-e published for children as a toy during the Edo and Meiji periods.

The eight figures are a turtle on a rock, a man wearing a Chinese-style hat, a rabbit, a shachihoko (a legendary creature with the head of dragon and the body of a dolphin), an owl, a fox, a snail, and a crow. Three include written instructions on how to make the hand shadows move: “Open your fingers within your sleeve to move the owl’s wings”, “Draw up your knee for the fox’s back” and “Move the chopsticks up and down."