Fudo Pass on the Mikuni Road in Kozuke Province (Joshu Mikuni goe Fudo toge), from the series "Famous Places in the Provinces (Shokoku meisho)"

Totoya Hokkei composed this surimono around 1825 as part of his series "Famous Places in the Provinces (Shokoku meisho)," depicting Fudo Pass on the Mikuni Road in Kozuke Province. The Mikuni road was an important inland route crossing the rugged mountains between Kozuke (modern Gunma) and Echigo (modern Niigata), and Fudo Pass marked one of its most demanding stretches. The pass took its name from a wayside shrine dedicated to Fudo Myoo, the wrathful Buddhist deity invoked for protection by travelers braving the steep, snow-prone route. Hokkei renders the dramatic mountain landscape with the bold pictorial design and economic line he learned from his teacher Katsushika Hokusai, founder of the Hokusai school, balancing the rugged terrain against the small figures who navigate it. As a senior pupil of Hokusai, Totoya Hokkei specialized in surimono, the privately commissioned deluxe prints distributed by kyoka poetry clubs to mark seasonal occasions. These prints combined a striking image with kyoka comic verses, and they were produced on heavy paper enriched with metallic pigments and embossing. The series "Famous Places in the Provinces" extended the long-established meisho tradition into the surimono format, allowing Hokkei to pair each landscape with poetry composed by club members. The Art Institute of Chicago, which preserves this impression, holds significant holdings of early nineteenth-century Japanese surimono. The technical refinements visible in the work, the careful color gradations of sky and mountainside, the embossed clouds, and the metallic accents, all reflect the heightened production standards that distinguished surimono from commercial prints and that made them prized objects among Edo's literary community.