Kuwana: Ferryboat at Shichiri Crossing (Kuwana, Shichiri no watashibune)—No. 43, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Reisho Tokaido

Kuwana: Ferryboat at Shichiri Crossing (Kuwana, Shichiri no watashibune) is the forty-third station in Utagawa Hiroshige's Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi), in the version called the Reisho Tokaido issued around 1842 and held by the Art Institute of Chicago. Kuwana, on the shore of Ise Bay in Ise Province, was the western end of the Shichiri no watashi, the seven-ri (approximately twenty-seven kilometer) ferry passage that linked the town with Miya across the bay and allowed Tokaido travelers to bypass a long detour by land. The crossing was one of the most distinctive features of the highway, and Hiroshige treats it as the defining image of Kuwana. In this Edo ukiyo-e landscape print he depicts the ferryboat under sail, its broad rectangular sail filling much of the composition while smaller craft and the silhouettes of Kuwana's waterfront, including the keep of Kuwana Castle, occupy the distance. Passengers and cargo cluster on the deck, indicating the practical role of the route in moving people and goods. The bokashi gradation of sea and sky frames the boat against an open horizon, suggesting the wide span of the bay rather than the close quarters of a riverside post town. As one of Hiroshige's later reworkings of the Tokaido subject, this Reisho Tokaido design refines and consolidates his understanding of the station, presenting Kuwana primarily through the maritime infrastructure that defined its place along the highway.