The Mimeguri Shrine from the Opposite Side of the Crossing

Dated 1854 and held in the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Mimeguri Shrine from the Opposite Side of the Crossing depicts the small Mimeguri Inari Shrine on the eastern bank of the Sumida River, near Mukōjima, viewed from the opposite shore. Mimeguri Shrine was a popular Edo destination, especially associated with cherry-viewing along the Sumida embankment, and its torii, partly submerged at high water, had become one of the river's most recognizable visual features. Utagawa Hiroshige organizes the design as an Edo ukiyo-e landscape print: the broad band of the river fills the middle of the composition, ferry boats and pleasure craft move across its surface, and the far bank carries the torii and the suggestion of the shrine's grove rising above the embankment. From the near bank, foreground figures—travelers, vendors, or pedestrians on the bund—help to anchor the viewer's vantage. The palette balances cool blue washes for the water and sky against warmer browns and greens along both shorelines, with red used selectively on the torii to draw the eye across the river. As often in his Sumida designs, Hiroshige uses bokashi gradations to give the water depth and motion, and the resulting print neatly integrates a famous shrine into the wider riverine geography of Edo. The Victoria and Albert impression preserves the registration of the torii and shows the artist working with the same vocabulary that would soon culminate in his celebrated One Hundred Famous Views of Edo.