Prawn (Kuruma ebi), Horse Mackerel (Aji), and Smartweed (Tade) from the series A Shoal of Fishes (Uozukushi)

Prawn (Kuruma ebi), Horse Mackerel (Aji), and Smartweed (Tade) from A Shoal of Fishes (Uozukushi), a posthumously published 1867 sheet, brings Utagawa Hiroshige's still-life project to one of its most appetizing pairings. The horse mackerel, a staple of Edo summer cooking, lies in the foreground with its silvery body and dark dorsal stripe carefully observed, while a tiger prawn or kuruma ebi curls above it, its striped shell rendered with attention to color and segmentation. A sprig of smartweed, the conventional accompaniment to grilled fish, fans across the composition. The pairing suggests a particular kind of summer table at an Edo fishmonger's. Although the Uo-zukushi series stands outside the Edo ukiyo-e landscape print genre that defines Hiroshige's wider reputation, the same compositional discipline runs through every sheet: clean negative space, restrained palette, confident keyblock outline, and a willingness to let the natural-history specimen speak for itself. The Harvard Art Museums impression preserves the careful color blocking that distinguishes early states from the later, often coarser reprints. Together with the kyoka inscribed alongside, the print situates urban diet within Edo literary culture, a pairing that has kept the Shoal of Fishes series among the most beloved of Hiroshige's late ventures.