Ejiri—No. 19, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Reisho Tokaido

Ejiri was the nineteenth post station on the Tokaido highway, situated in present-day Shizuoka Prefecture near the port of Shimizu on Suruga Bay. The "Reisho Tokaido" designation identifies this as one of Hiroshige's later treatments of the fifty-three stations, distinguished from the celebrated Hoeido Tokaido of 1833–34 by cartouche texts rendered in reisho (clerical script) calligraphy and a different publisher. Ejiri's coastal position on Suruga Bay offered views toward Mount Fuji under favorable conditions, a compositional opportunity Hiroshige's treatment of this station may exploit. The print likely depicts the approaches to the station, the bay's shoreline, or the village environs, rendered in the horizontal compositions Hiroshige developed for his travel series. The broad water and sky characteristic of a coastal station allowed for the graduated bokashi washes across sea and atmosphere that Hiroshige handled with particular assurance. The Reisho Tokaido is less frequently reproduced than the Hoeido edition but forms part of Hiroshige's sustained engagement with the Tokaido as a pictorial subject across his career.