Blossoms on the Tama River Embankment

At front left a large cherry with a thick trunk spreads white blossoms, and the row of cherries continues along the aqueduct behind it. Crowds of blossom viewers are on the road under the trees, and children can also be seen. At right people walk along a plank fence, and a teahouse stands with guests viewing the flowers from a second-floor room. A small bridge spans the water at lower right.

The white of the cherries, the gray of the trunks, the green of the embankment and the white flow of the aqueduct divide the picture diagonally, and a perspective in which the row of trees shrinks toward the back conveys the length of the line of flowers. The sky is indigo at the top and tinted pale crimson near the horizon.

The Tamagawa Aqueduct was a waterworks that drew the water of the Tama River to Edo, and around Naito-Shinjuku it flowed on top of an embankment. A story is told that people of the post town planted cherries on the embankment to attract visitors but they were removed before they bloomed, so the full-bloom row of trees Hiroshige drew may have been the form the famous place was meant to take.

This is the last print of the Spring section, and one of the earliest in the series, issued in February 1856 (Ansei 3). It is regarded as a print that also shows the publisher's calculation in announcing in advance a place likely to become famous.