Bikuni Bridge in Snow

At lower left stands a signboard with "Yamakujira" written large, and at lower right are the signboard of a roast-sweet-potato shop reading "maru-yaki" and a snow-covered roof. Between them a man carrying a load walks the snowy road, and in the distance are Bikuni Bridge and the snow-laden stone walls and trees along the moat. Large flakes of snow fall from a navy sky.

The contrast between white snow and deep navy sky is strong, and the black characters on the signboards lend the picture strength. Enclosing both sides with the foreground signboard and roof, the composition looks through the gap to the bridge and embankment beyond.

Bikuni Bridge was a bridge that spanned the area where the outer moat and the Kyobashi River joined. "Yamakujira" ("mountain whale") means wild boar meat and was the signboard of a shop serving it as medicinal eating in Edo, where eating the meat of beasts was officially avoided. Roast sweet potatoes were also a favorite winter treat of the common people. In its device of letting signboards alone speak of the town's food, one can see the fine attention paid to the lives of Edo people.

Its censor's seal gives October 1858 (Ansei 5), making it a print issued after the death of the first Hiroshige. From the composition with its wide-open foreground and the way the snow is drawn, a theory that the second Hiroshige's hand is involved is strongly held, though the holding museums attribute it to the first.