Rainy Season at Ryoshimachi, Shinagawa

Ryoshimachi — literally "fishermen's quarter" — was a historic waterfront district within Shinagawa, one of the major post-stations on the old Tokaido road south of Edo. Hasui's rainy-season composition depicts traditional wooden structures along the shoreline during the tsuyu, the early-summer rainy period marked by sustained overcast and persistent drizzle. The scene characteristically employs a cool, desaturated palette of grey-blue and brown tones, with the rooflines and boat masts of the fishing quarter rendered in dark silhouette against a bokashi-graduated sky heavy with cloud. Hasui printed multiple impressions of this design across different sessions, and this later state shows the characteristic tonal shifts that occur as blocks age: slightly softer key-block lines and subtler transition in the water reflection. The print belongs to Hasui's extensive documentation of disappearing Meiji and Taisho-era coastal townscapes.