Emonzaka at Shin-Yoshiwara (Shin-Yoshiwara Emonzaka), No. 48 from the series Edo meisho dōke zukushi (Comical Views of Famous Places in Edo)

Emonzaka at Shin-Yoshiwara (Shin-Yoshiwara Emonzaka), number 48 in Utagawa Hirokage's Edo meisho dōke zukushi ('Comical Views of Famous Places in Edo'), is a vertical ōban color woodblock print published in 1861 by Tsujiokaya Bunsuke. The Emonzaka was the sloping approach (zaka, 'hill') leading down from the rice fields north of the city into the Shin-Yoshiwara licensed pleasure quarter, named for the gesture (emon o tsukurou, 'to straighten one's collar') with which a visitor was supposed to arrange his clothing before crossing into the quarter. The approach was a stock subject for meisho-e of the Yoshiwara: a stage on which the visitor briefly stepped between everyday Edo and the regulated theatricality of the quarter. Hirokage's print treats the descent of Emonzaka as comic disaster — porters and sedan-chair (kago) crews lose control on the slope, passengers tumble, and the carefully prepared visit dissolves into pratfall. The sheet is one of the last in the series, dated 1861, with which Hirokage closed his work on the dōke zukushi. The Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs Division holds an impression (LCCN 2008660551), measured at 37 × 25.3 cm, accessible through the Library's open-access digital program.