Picture of the Sunrise at Hyapongui, Ryôguku, Edo (Toto Ryôgoku Hyapongui akatsuki no zu), Meiji period, dated 1879

This 1879 oban print from Kiyochika's celebrated series of Tokyo light pictures depicts the wooden stakes known as Hyapongui — literally 'hundred stake piles' — along the Sumida River bank at Ryōgoku, rendered at dawn. Hyapongui was a distinctive feature of the Ryōgoku riverscape: rows of old pilings rising from the river's edge, used by boat traffic and familiar to Edo-period inhabitants as a characteristic view of the area. Kiyochika transforms this mundane industrial shoreline into an atmospheric study of early morning light reflected across water, with the stakes creating a rhythmic vertical pattern against a sky graded from deep indigo through pink and gold. The akatsuki (dawn) setting allowed him to deploy the full range of his bokashi technique — the gradual color blending achieved by wiping the woodblock before printing — to render the diffuse glow distinctive of his kōsen-ga style. Ryōgoku, the district adjacent to the famous bridge, was one of the most recognized settings in the Edo visual tradition, and Kiyochika's interpretation reframes it through a Western atmospheric lens while preserving its topographical identity.