Koume Embankment

Two slender bare trees stand in the foreground, and beneath them a waterway flows, curving into the distance. On the embankment path at right are people walking together, a child, and a dog, and a wooden bridge spans the foreground. Beyond the channel, fields, farmhouses, and trees spread out, and a line of geese crosses the sky.

The gray of the bare trees, the pale blue of the channel, and the young-grass green of the embankment are in gentle harmony. A bridge is placed in both the foreground and the background, and the curve of the channel leads the eye into the distance.

Koume Village was a farming village that spread across the area of today's Mukojima and Oshiage, east of the Sumida River, and was a suburb that Edo residents visited to enjoy the charm of the countryside. The channel is the Yotsugi-dori Irrigation Canal (Hikifune River), and the name Hikifune is said to have come from boats being towed by ropes to carry people.

Although it belongs to the winter section, its soft colors evoke the quiet of the suburbs as they await spring. The same canal is also depicted in the spring print "Towboats along the Yotsugidori Canal." The breadth of this series is shown by its choice of an everyday suburban path where Edo people enjoyed strolling rather than a showy famous site.