View of Tsukuda Island (Tsukudajima no kei), from the series "Eastern Capital (Toto)"

This color woodblock print in oban format from Hokuju's Eastern Capital (Toto) series, dated to circa 1789-1818 and held by the Art Institute of Chicago, depicts Tsukuda Island in the mouth of Edo Bay. Tsukudajima was a small island originally settled in the early seventeenth century by fishermen brought from the village of Tsukuda in Settsu Province; they were granted exclusive fishing rights in the bay in exchange for keeping the shogunal court supplied with fresh seafood. The community gave its name to tsukudani, the dish of small fish or seaweed simmered in soy sauce that originated as a way to preserve the catch. Hokuju shows the island as a low, populous shape against a wide expanse of water and sky, with sailing vessels and fishing boats arranged at varying distances to give the composition depth. The blue water is rendered in his characteristic graded bokashi printing, and the sky carries the cool, almost theatrical clarity that distinguishes his atmospheric effects. The print exemplifies the early nineteenth-century moment when Edo waterfront views were becoming staple subjects of the landscape print, well before Hiroshige would canonize them in his One Hundred Famous Views of Edo three decades later.