Picture of Matsuchiyama, from the series Famous Places in the Eastern Capital

From the series Famous Places in the Eastern Capital (Toto meisho), this Edo ukiyo-e landscape print by Utagawa Hiroshige dates to about 1835 and is in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. The site is Matsuchiyama, a low rise on the northwestern bank of the Sumida River near Asakusa, crowned by the small but venerable Hon-ryu-in temple. The hill commanded panoramic views of the river, the broad lowlands of the Yoshiwara district, and the distant outline of Mount Tsukuba, making it a favorite spot for pleasure-boat parties and pilgrimage outings alike. Hiroshige stages a horizontal composition that uses the bend of the Sumida to lead the eye from the busy foreground bank up toward the temple precincts on Matsuchiyama. Pine trees and a stone torii break the silhouette of the hill, while pleasure boats, fishermen, and travelers populate the river and shoreline. A characteristic bokashi gradation softens the sky and the surface of the water. The print belongs to a series in which Hiroshige catalogued Edo's most popular destinations for a public hungry for vicarious sightseeing, and demonstrates the early development of the landscape print formulae he would later refine in One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. The Cleveland impression preserves the warm, slightly faded indigo and ochre tones typical of mid-Tenpo era printing.