Tokaido gojusantsugi, Pl.15
1868-1912
Pack your bags and hit the road! This woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige depicts Yoshiwara, the 15th station of the famous Tokaido highway. Unlike the notorious pleasure district in Edo with the same name, this Yoshiwara was a quiet post town in Suruga province, famous for making sturdy ropes from mountain grass. You can see travelers and a pack horse with a bright blue load trudging past tall, twisting pine trees. Looming in the background is the iconic, snow-capped cone of Mount Fuji, a constant companion for travelers on this route. While Hiroshige designed the original 'Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido' series in the 1830s, this specific piece is a later Meiji-era reprint (1868-1912), proving that his scenic travel guides were the 19th-century equivalent of a bestseller travel blog.
- Technique
- Woodblock print