Famous Trees in the Eastern Capital: The Cherry Tree at Naruko (Toto meiboku Naruko no sakura)

Dated c. 1807 by the Art Institute of Chicago and described as the right sheet of an oban triptych, this print belongs to a meiboku (famous trees) project devoted to celebrated specimens in and around Edo. The Naruko cherry tree, located in the Naruko district north of the city, was one of the more storied individual trees in Edo's hanami calendar, and Eizan dresses the occasion in the trappings of the meisho-bijin tradition: fashionable women presented under or beside the famous tree, with seasonal kimono and accessories signaling the moment of peak bloom. As the right sheet of a triptych, the surviving Art Institute print would originally have connected with two further panels to form a panoramic scene, with figures and landscape continuing across the joins — a format Eizan used repeatedly for outdoor and excursion subjects through the Bunka era.