Picture Book Sumida River A Glance of Both Shores (Ehon Sumida gawa ryogan ichiran), Vol. 2

Picture Book Sumida River: A Glance of Both Shores (Ehon Sumida gawa ryogan ichiran), Volume 2, is an illustrated book by Katsushika Hokusai held at the Harvard Art Museums. The Sumida was the central waterway of Edo, lined with theaters, teahouses, temples, and pleasure quarters, and Hokusai's book project surveys both banks in continuous sequence, panel by panel, so that the reader experiences the river as an unfolding panorama. Volume 2 carries the journey further along the shore, capturing seasonal events, festival crowds, ferry traffic, and the quieter stretches where willows lean over embankments. As an Edo ukiyo-e production, the book combines Hokusai's mature talent for landscape composition with his sharp eye for social observation, treating ordinary boatmen, vendors, and pleasure-seekers as essential characters in the urban story. The printing technique, mostly subtle monochrome with occasional accents, allows fine line work to define faces, rigging, and architectural details across each spread. Books such as this one were prized possessions in literate Edo households, offering vicarious travel and a way to relive memorable outings along the river. Today, Ehon Sumida gawa ryogan ichiran remains a key document for historians of early nineteenth-century Tokyo, showing both the geography of the Sumida and the daily rituals that animated it, and reaffirming Hokusai's standing as one of the great cartographers of urban experience working in the ukiyo-e print tradition.