Misty Moonlight on the Shore at Tsukuda Island (Tsukudajima kaihen oborozuki) is an Edo ukiyo-e landscape print by Utagawa Hiroshige from around 1830, designed for the series Famous Places in the Eastern Capital (Toto meisho) and held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Tsukudajima was a small fishing community at the mouth of the Sumida River, settled in the early Edo period by fishermen originally from the Tsukuda area near Osaka, and was celebrated for its working boats, lantern-lit shoreline, and quiet evening views over the bay. Hiroshige stages the print as a nocturne, with a softly hazy moon hanging above water rendered in graded indigo and the silhouettes of fishing boats and structures arrayed along the shore. The use of oborozuki, or misty moon, signals a particular season and mood that anchored the work in classical Japanese poetic tradition. The Art Institute of Chicago documents the print as part of Hiroshige's Toto meisho series, where it joins other views of famous Edo locations. As a Utagawa Hiroshige design, the sheet exemplifies the artist's command of atmospheric nocturnes and his interest in maritime communities at the city's edge. The composition's deep, restrained palette, careful gradation, and selective lighting all anticipate the night scenes that would appear in his later One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. For collectors and researchers of Edo ukiyo-e landscape prints, Tsukudajima kaihen oborozuki offers a compact yet evocative case study in how Hiroshige integrated topography, working life, and poetic atmosphere into a single sheet, contributing to the evolving visual record of Edo as both a great city and a layered cultural imagination.
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Misty Moonlight on the Shore at Tsukuda Island (Tsukudajima kaihen oborozuki), from the series "Famous Places in the Eastern Capital (Toto meisho)" was created by Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川広重) in c. 1835/38.
Yes — Misty Moonlight on the Shore at Tsukuda Island (Tsukudajima kaihen oborozuki), from the series "Famous Places in the Eastern Capital (Toto meisho)" is part of the Famous Places in the Eastern Capital series by Utagawa Hiroshige.
Misty Moonlight on the Shore at Tsukuda Island (Tsukudajima kaihen oborozuki), from the series "Famous Places in the Eastern Capital (Toto meisho)" depicts landscapes, edo & tokyo, and moonlight.
