Nihon Embankment, Yoshiwara (Yoshiwara Nihonzutsumi), from the series "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei)"

This oban nishiki-e from the "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo" shows the Nihonzutsumi—the earthen embankment road leading from the Asakusa district northward to the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter, which sat in the reclaimed marshes of the city's edge. The embankment was built on raised ground to prevent flooding of the Yoshiwara precinct, and its approach was lined with willow trees whose drooping branches created a canopied passage in spring. Hiroshige's rendering likely captures this row of willows from a lateral or elevated vantage, their fine branches cascading in light green over the road below. Palanquins and pedestrians moving toward the Yoshiwara's great gate would animate the middle ground, while the flat agricultural landscape of the surrounding wetlands extends to either side. The willows, rendered with delicate line work, contrast with the flat color fields describing the earthen road, water channels, and distant rooftops—a composition balancing the decorative and the topographically specific.