Triptych: Sôgô Watashiba no zu, from the series Chôga Kyoshinkai, Meiji period, dated 1884

Produced in 1884 for the Chôga Kyoshinkai series—likely an art exhibition or competitive display context—this triptych depicts a ferry crossing (watashiba), showing passengers, boatmen, and the activity at a riverside landing. The 1884 date places this work in Kiyochika's middle period, after the celebrated Tokyo kosen-ga 'light pictures' series of the late 1870s and before his full engagement with Sino-Japanese War imagery in 1894. Ferry crossing subjects had a long history in Japanese printmaking, associated with poetic utamakura locations along the Tôkaidô and other travel routes. Kiyochika brings his characteristic attention to atmospheric conditions to the genre—water surface reflections, ambient hour-specific light, and spatial recession across the full width of a river scene. The triptych format accommodates the horizontal breadth of the subject naturally, distributing the far bank, the crossing boats, and the near landing across three oban sheets in a continuous panorama.