Clear Weather After Snow at Nihon Bridge

Nihonbashi Bridge crosses the middle of the picture, with people passing back and forth along it. Boats loaded with fish line the Nihonbashi River in the foreground, and under the roofs of the riverbank at lower right, fish-market workers are busy at their tasks. Beyond the bridge stretch rows of white-walled storehouses, and farther back the woods of Edo Castle and Mount Fuji come into view.

Snow covers every roof and storehouse, and the deep indigo of the river and the gradated band at the top of the sky tighten the white expanse. The elevated viewpoint stacks bridge, storehouses, castle and Fuji one behind the other, presenting the town, the shogun's castle and the sacred mountain as one continuous scene.

Nihonbashi was the starting point of the five great highways, and the fish market at the foot of the bridge was known as the kitchen of Edo. Coming after the great Ansei Edo earthquake of the tenth month of 1855 (Ansei 2), the calm townscape after the snow may also carry a sense of celebration for an Edo that was recovering.

This is the first print of the Spring section, and the series begins at Nihonbashi. The composition that brings Fuji and Edo Castle into one view is considered a fitting prologue to the whole. The censor's seal dates it to May 1856 (Ansei 3), making it one of the earliest prints published. The publisher was Uoya Eikichi of Shitaya Shin-Kuromon-cho, and the series became Hiroshige's great work of his final years. The bird's-eye composition that makes full use of the vertical format is thought to have served as a model for many later prints.