Suido Bridge and Surugadai

A large black carp streamer takes up the left half of the picture on the diagonal. At right the pole that flies it stands vertically, and beyond it the Surugadai residential district spreads, with banners, streamers and small carp streamers flying here and there. At lower right Suido Bridge over the Kanda River and people walking with umbrellas can be seen, and Mount Fuji rises in the distance.

The carp's scales are finely rendered in dark and light ink, and the blue of its eye leaves a strong impression. The bold perspective that draws the foreground carp extremely large and the distant town and Fuji small is among the most famous compositions even within the series.

Surugadai was a samurai district where the residences of hatamoto lined the high ground south of the Kanda River, and Suido Bridge is said to be named because the hanging aqueduct of the Kanda Aqueduct crossed the river nearby. On the Boys' Festival on the fifth day of the fifth month, households with boys flew banners and carp streamers, coloring the town's sky.

This is one of the representative works of the Summer section, with a censor's seal of the intercalary fifth month of 1857 (Ansei 4). This print, which makes the carp streamer its protagonist, shows well the series' character of overlaying seasonal events on famous places.