「[今戸橋茶亭の月夜]」

「今戸橋茶亭の月夜」 — "Moonlit night at a teahouse at Imado Bridge" — is precisely the kind of subject that defined Kiyochika's mature kosen-ga style. Imado Bridge crossed the Sumida River near the Asakusa district, an area of teahouses, riverside promenades, and traditional entertainment that Kiyochika depicted repeatedly during the late 1870s and 1880s. The teahouse setting and moonlit atmosphere allowed him to employ the graduated bokashi ink gradations and chiaroscuro that Western pictorial influence contributed to his printmaking vocabulary. Lamplight reflected on water, figures silhouetted against a luminous sky, and the architectural forms of a riverside teahouse likely organize the composition in his characteristic nocturnal register.