The karma of Hiroshige

My husband and I donated a 19th century Hiroshige woodblock print to a fundraising auction for my son's preschool. It was part of a larger group of Japanese woodblocks we had purchased several years ago when we had a case at a local antique store. We had never framed it, as we much preferred the two Hiroshiges we already had hanging on our living room wall.

A week after I dropped off the print, my husband received an e-mail from a man in Kansas. "Do you still like Hiroshige?" he was asked. We failed to connect the man's name to anyone we knew though my husband answered the e-mail in the affirmative.

In the mail soon after, we received a gift of a Hiroshige. It was from an old friend of my husband's who had purchased a collection of art from the man in Kansas. Not a fan of Japanese woodblocks, he had told the man to send the Hiroshige on to my husband.

It's of Nihonbashi, one of 53 stations along the Tokaido Highway, framed in traditional style and much more to our liking.