Pine of Success and Oumayagashi, Asakusa River

Across the top of the picture the Pine of Success stretches its branches far over the river. A roofed boat is moored in the left foreground, and a woman's shadow shows faintly on the green blind. On the river, several boats carrying customers head upstream, and the houses on the far shore continue as black shapes. Stars are scattered across the night sky. The guests behind the blind are not shown, and are left to the viewer's imagination.

An indigo night sky and a river graded from light blue to deep navy cover the picture, tightened by the black of the pine and the green of the blind. Expressing figures only through shadow creates a quiet and alluring night atmosphere.

The Pine of Success was a pine at the riverside of the shogunate's rice warehouses in Asakusa, and it is said to have been named because customers who traveled to Yoshiwara by boat would discuss how things had gone ("shubi") there on their way back. A ferry ran at Omayagashi on the far bank, and the night river was lively with people boating. The Kuramae riverside, lined with the shogunate's rice warehouses, was a busy place of unloading by day.

This print belongs to the summer section, and its censor's seal dates it to the eighth month of Ansei 3 (1856). The winter section has "Omayagashi," depicting the same area in snow, and the two pictures of different seasons let one compare the Sumida River by night and by day.