Fukuroi: The Legend of Sakura-ga-ike (Sakura-ga-ike no yurai)

Fukuroi: The Legend of Sakura-ga-ike (Sakura-ga-ike no yurai) is an undated woodblock print by Utagawa Kunisada combining the imagery of the Tōkaidō highway with one of the popular pond legends of central Japan. Fukuroi was the 27th station on the Tōkaidō between Edo and Kyoto, in modern Shizuoka prefecture, and Kunisada belonged to the generation of Edo ukiyo-e designers who reimagined the highway through bijin, actors and legendary themes rather than through pure landscape after Hokusai and Hiroshige had reshaped that genre. The pond of Sakura-ga-ike was the setting of folk stories about a dragon-like serpent spirit, and Kunisada uses the legend as a narrative pretext for designing a figure within a station setting. The composition characteristically combines a foreground figure — bijin or kabuki character — with a small cartouche or inset image that names the station and identifies the legend, a pattern shared with many station-print series Kunisada designed in the 1840s and 1850s. The figural type, broad face and confident black contour are those of his mature manner, and the saturated mineral palette of indigo, vermilion and yellow against the white of the washi reflects the period's commercial print taste. As one of the most productive designers of late Edo ukiyo-e, Kunisada often allowed yakusha-e to circulate inside ostensibly topographical series, and Edo viewers would have read both the place and the actor performance the figure quotes. The impression is held by the Victoria and Albert Museum, whose record identifies the station and legend but leaves the date unsigned.