Enoshima in Sagami Province (Soshu Enoshima), fron the series "Elegant Famous Places in the Various Provinces (Furyu shokoku meisho)"

This Art Institute of Chicago oban, from the series "Elegant Famous Places in the Various Provinces (Furyu shokoku meisho)" and dated early nineteenth century, looks beyond Edo to one of the most popular pilgrimage and recreation destinations near the city: Enoshima, the tidal island off Sagami Province (modern Kanagawa) dedicated to the goddess Benzaiten. The series extends Eizan's meisho-bijin formula — a famous place embodied by a fashionable woman — to provincial sites, expanding his Edo-bound "Eight Views" projects into a broader tour of the country. Enoshima was a one-day excursion from Edo and a frequent subject for nineteenth-century print artists; pairing it with Benzaiten, the female deity of music, eloquence, and the arts, gave Eizan natural license to make the figure herself an avatar of the place. The result is characteristic Eizan: an elongated bijin in foreground close-up, with the famous site referenced through compositional shorthand rather than topographic description.