Falling Star Pine Tree at Zenyôji Temple

Zenyôji's falling-star pine (ryūsei-no-matsu) is a specimen tree associated with a meteorite legend, and Koizumi treats it as both the compositional anchor and the cultural signifier of the temple precinct. The print likely positions the gnarled pine across the foreground or middle ground, with temple architecture — gate, hall, or stone lantern — receding behind. Carving an aged pine tests a printmaker's keyblock work: the bark's craggy texture and asymmetric needle clusters require fine knife technique against a hardwood block, typically cherry. As a plate from Dai Tokyo Hyakkei (One Hundred Views of Great Tokyo), the work belongs to the meisho-e tradition of famous-place imagery that Koizumi inherited from Hiroshige and adapted to interwar Tokyo. The series, issued between 1928 and 1940, documented landmarks both ancient and modern, and the inclusion of a temple's sacred tree fits its program of cultural inventory across the rebuilt capital.