Belfry

The print depicts a Japanese temple bell tower (shōrō), the open-sided wooden structure housing the bonshō bell that marked the hours and called monks to ritual. Koizumi's belfry likely belongs to one of Tokyo's older temple compounds -- possibly within the "Bell of Time" (Toki no Kane) tradition that sounded across Edo from sites like Ueno and Asakusa. Architectural subjects were central to his Dai Tokyo Hyakkei series, where the wooden joinery, kawara-roof tiles, and bracket sets (tokyō) of traditional buildings supplied motifs suited to the linear precision of a carved keyblock. As both designer and carver, Koizumi could exploit fine kentō-registered detail in the lattice and railings while reserving broad, flat color for sky and surrounding foliage. The result reads as documentary rather than picturesque -- a record of structures still standing in interwar Tokyo before wartime bombing destroyed many of them.