Lumberyards At Kiba in snow

Kiba, located in the Fukagawa district of east Tokyo, served as the city's principal lumber storage area from the Edo period onward, with timber rafts floated through a network of canals and stacked in flooded yards before distribution to construction sites across the capital. The print depicts these yards under snow, a subject within the meisho-e tradition of seasonal Tokyo views and a fitting inclusion in Koizumi's One Hundred Views of Great Tokyo (Dai Tokyo Hyakkei), the series he designed, carved, and printed between 1928 and 1940. The composition likely registers the contrast between dark stacked timbers and the white covering of snow on rafters, canal banks, and the surfaces of stored logs—an effect that requires careful keyblock cutting to maintain crisp edges and subtle bokashi to suggest the gray winter sky. Snow subjects were a staple of Edo-period landscape printmaking, and Koizumi's treatment continues that line while applying the sosaku-hanga ethic of the artist as sole maker. Kiba's working-class industry sat far from the more frequently depicted shrines and gardens, and his inclusion of it reflects the documentary breadth of his Tokyo project.