Monkey: Koshindo Hall at Takanawa (Saru, Takanawa Koshindo), from the series "Famous Places in Edo Compared to the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac for the Ichiyo Circle (Ichiyoren Edo meisho mitate junishi)"

Monkey: Koshindo Hall at Takanawa belongs to Yashima Gakutei's elaborate [surimono](/glossary/surimono) series Famous Places in Edo Compared to the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac for the Ichiyo Circle (Ichiyoren Edo meisho mitate junishi), produced in 1822 and held by the Art Institute of Chicago. The series belongs to the mitate or analogue-pictures tradition, pairing each of the twelve zodiac animals with a famous Edo locale whose name, association, or annual rituals echoed the animal in some way. Here the monkey is matched with the Koshindo Hall at Takanawa, a temple in the southern outskirts of Edo whose Koshin observance - the all-night vigil held on Koshin days - was traditionally guarded by three monkey deities. The Ichiyo circle for whom the series was commissioned would have read these correspondences with pleasure, and the kyoka verses printed alongside each image were designed to bring the pairing to life. Gakutei, trained in the Hokusai school under Katsushika Hokusai, treats the place with the calm topographical eye that the school brought to famous-place imagery, while keeping the surimono's refined palette and intimate scale. Deluxe printing techniques - mineral pigments, [karazuri](/glossary/karazuri) embossing, and burnished metallic powders - register the sheet's status as a luxury object. As a Yashima Gakutei kyoka-e, the print shows how the surimono genre married the topographical interests of the [meisho-e](/glossary/meisho-e) tradition to the conceptual wit of mitate.