The City Flourishing, Tanabata Festival

Tiled roofs and drying platforms line the bottom of the picture, and from them many bamboo poles reach toward the sky. Tied to the bamboo, besides the strips of paper for wishes, are ornaments shaped like gourds, cut watermelons, streamers, and account books, all buffeted by a strong wind. Beyond the distant rows of houses, Mount Fuji appears hazy and blue.

It is a light composition that leaves most of the sky a pale blue and scatters colorful decorations across it. By setting the foreground bamboo boldly from one edge of the picture to the other and pressing the town low, the artist makes the breadth and height of the sky strongly felt.

Edo's Tanabata was an event in which, in the lead-up to July 7, households raised bamboo poles higher than their roofs and competed with decorations expressing wishes for thriving business and improved handwriting. The view is thought to be from the drying platform of Hiroshige's own home near Kyobashi. It can also be read as a celebration of the town's vitality returning two years after the great Ansei earthquake.

In his last years Hiroshige drew many places around Edo for this series, but here he chose the sky over the town where he lived. Also of note is that it conveys the bustle of the festival through the decorations alone, without drawing any people.