Ejiri: The Story of the Pine Tree of the Feather Cloak at Miho Bay (Miho no ura hagoromo matsu no yurai)

Ejiri: The Story of the Pine Tree of the Feather Cloak at Miho Bay (Miho no ura hagoromo matsu no yurai), held by the Victoria and Albert Museum, is an Edo ukiyo-e landscape print by Utagawa Hiroshige in which the Tokaido station of Ejiri is overlaid with the legend of Miho. The Hagoromo legend, well known from the Noh play of the same name, recounts how a fisherman discovered a feather cloak hanging from a pine on Miho no Matsubara, the great pine-clad spit jutting into Suruga Bay, and only returned it to its celestial owner after she had agreed to dance for him. In this Utagawa Hiroshige landscape print the artist combines a topographical view of the Miho spit, with its long line of pines extending into the bay, and a discreet treatment of the legendary figures, allowing the landscape itself to carry most of the narrative weight. The Edo ukiyo-e tradition of pairing Tokaido stations with associated stories is here employed at its most refined: rather than illustrating the legend directly, Hiroshige invites recognition of the site as the place where the story occurred. The Victoria and Albert Museum impression preserves the cool palette of blues and greens, the rhythm of the pines, and the careful spatial recession toward distant Suruga peaks. As a Utagawa Hiroshige landscape print, the design integrates myth, geography and travel into a single coherent vision of place.