Kasumigaseki

Street performers of the New Year season and people making their New Year calls pass along the slope in the foreground. On the left is the gate of a mansion with thick trees, on the right a long wall with a namako-kabe pattern, and bamboo New Year pine decorations stand at the entrances. Beyond the bottom of the slope, rows of houses and the blue sea of Edo Bay open out.

Most of the sky is given over to a pale blue gradation, scattered with large and small kites. Kite strings link the top and bottom of the picture on the diagonal, giving a sense of both the depth of the slope and the breadth of the sky. The composition looks straight down the slope and is nearly symmetrical.

Kasumigaseki lay south of Edo Castle and was a samurai district lined with the main residences of daimyo. Because the sea could be seen from the top of the slope, the slopes in this area are said to have also been called Shiomizaka, the Tide-viewing Slope. At New Year it was also a place where samurai New Year processions and townspeople entertainers came and went.

This is the second print of the Spring section, placed near the start of the series among the prints that deal with New Year scenes. The kite-filled sky shares its conceit with the next print, Hibiya and Soto-Sakurada from Yamashita-cho. The censor's seal dates it to January 1857 (Ansei 4), so a New Year scene was put on sale in the New Year itself. It shows that seasonal events were issued to match the actual time of year, and townspeople may have bought it as a New Year souvenir.