Emon Hill, from the series "The Appearance of Yoshiwara (Yoshiwara no tei)"

Emon Hill, from the series The Appearance of Yoshiwara (Yoshiwara no tei) and held in the Art Institute of Chicago, is a circa 1681 to 1684 oban sumizuri-e that depicts the famous topographical feature at the entrance to the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter. Emonzaka, the Emon slope, was the small rise leading down to the great gate (omon) of the Yoshiwara, and it became a recurring iconographic shorthand in ukiyo-e for the moment of arrival at the floating world, a charged liminal site that Moronobu was among the first to render as a print subject. The composition layers travelers, sedan chairs, and pedestrians along the descending slope, with the great gate visible in the background and the pleasure-quarter rooftops beyond. Moronobu's textile-trained eye is again evident in the detailed kimono patterns of the figures, while his architectural draftsmanship handles the gate and the surrounding shop fronts with characteristic confidence. Printed in single-block black ink, the work helped establish Emonzaka as a stock motif of Yoshiwara imagery that would recur in prints by Sukenobu, Masanobu, Utamaro, and many others, who all worked within the iconographic framework Moronobu first defined.