Nihon Embankment, Yoshiwara

The Nihon Embankment runs diagonally from lower right to upper left. Reed-screened teahouses line the top of the bank, and palanquins and customers carrying lanterns pass along it. Beyond the trees at right, the roofs of the New Yoshiwara peep out, while at left fields and water spread out, and a thin moon and a line of geese are drawn in the sky.

From the high vantage point, the black slope of the embankment cuts broadly across the picture. The contrast between the indigo pre-dawn sky and the pale yellow light of the teahouses conveys the atmosphere of a road where people never cease to come all night.

The Nihon Embankment was built along the Yamaya Canal and was the road from Asakusa to the Great Gate of the New Yoshiwara. After the Yoshiwara was moved north of Asakusa following the Great Fire of Meireki, teahouses lined the road used by customers, and the "Looking-back Willow" stood just before the Great Gate.

This print belongs to the winter section and, together with the next print, "Asakusa Rice Fields and Torinomachi Festival," depicts the surroundings of the Yoshiwara. Whereas the spring print "Dawn inside the Yoshiwara" shows the interior of the quarter, this one shows the road leading to it from outside. The sky with its moon and geese is thought to carry something of the lonely mood of the road to the pleasure quarter, where traffic never stopped through the night.