Afternoon at Ninohashi Bridge in Azabu

This print depicts Ninohashi, the 'Second Bridge,' in the Azabu district of what is now Tokyo's Minato Ward. Hasui was drawn to Tokyo's older residential neighborhoods, where low stone bridges and earthen embankments persisted alongside encroaching modernity. An afternoon scene such as this would likely feature the gentle arc of the bridge framed by seasonal foliage, with still canal water beneath reflecting the pale midday sky through careful bokashi gradation. Azabu retained a quieter, more traditional character than central Tokyo, and Hasui frequently used such urban waterways to anchor compositions that balanced architectural geometry against the soft irregularity of trees and water. The publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō's artisans would have deployed multiple keyblock impressions to render the textured stonework and the subtle warmth of afternoon light. The print belongs to Hasui's long practice of documenting Tokyo's disappearing cityscape across the Taishō and Shōwa periods.