Maisaka: The Ferry at Imagiri (Maisaka, Imagiri funawatashi), from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Tokaido with Poem (Kyoka iri Tokaido)

Maisaka: The Ferry at Imagiri, from Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido, also known as the Tokaido with Poem (Kyoka iri Tokaido), is a landscape print by Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 to 1858), part of one of the several Tokaido series he produced after the success of his earlier Hoeido Tokaido. Maisaka was the thirtieth station on the Tokaido road, sited at the head of Lake Hamana where a narrow strait, known as Imagiri, connected the lake to the Pacific. Travelers crossed the strait by ferry, and the Maisaka station was therefore associated with the ferry crossing rather than with a single overland route. Hiroshige composes the view to feature ferry boats moving across the water, with the distinctive landform of the Imagiri opening, a pine-fringed Pacific horizon, and the slopes of Mount Fuji visible in the distance. The Kyoka iri Tokaido, or Tokaido with Poem, is so called because each print is accompanied by a comic-style poem appropriate to the station. The 1832 date placement aligns this series with the years immediately following the publication of the Hoeido Tokaido and reflects Hiroshige's continuing engagement with the road and its stations as subject. As a landscape print in the Edo ukiyo-e tradition, the work participates in the broader practice of the meisho-e survey, treating each station as a distinct visual problem with its own topography and incident. The impression is held in the Art Institute of Chicago, which preserves significant materials from Hiroshige's several Tokaido series.