Library Item

Kusatsu from 'Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road' (Tokaido gojusan tsugi meisho zue). Tate-e edition.

1855

 

The following information appears on the print:

Signature: Hiroshige hitsu
Artist: Ando/Utagawa Hiroshige

The Tokaido (literally the 'eastern sea road'), was one of two main routes connecting the emperor's capital in Kyoto and the seat of the shogun's administration in Edo (Tokyo). There were 53 numbered stations on this route which, depending on weather conditions, could take up to a month to complete. Kusatsu was number 53, leading to Outsu and the final destination of Kyoto. On arrival the traveller would immediately pay homage to the emperoror in the Imperial Palace. In the square cartouche (top right) the caption reads: 'From Kusatsu to Yabase the road is like a bow' (Kusatsu yori Yabase wa michi no yumi to naru). Instead of travelling all the way round the lake, time could be saved by taking a boat and crossing from shore to shore.
Hiroshige completed several versions of this travel series, which were immediately successful.

This is one of a set of 50 prints donated to Edinburgh City Libraries by Marie Ferguson Dyer in honour of her father Henry Dyer. Dyer was a Scottish engineer who became the first Principal of the Imperial College of Engineering in Tokyo in 1872.