Yoshida on the Tokaido

A large window opens at the back of the teahouse room, and a small Fuji can be seen beyond it. The two women customers sit in the best seats for viewing Fuji, and the shop woman appears to be pointing out the view. The sign on the eaves reads "Fujimi Chaya" (Fuji-View Teahouse), showing that the shop prided itself on its view of Fuji. Both women customers have their heads wrapped in towels, in travel style.

In the foreground, the palanquin bearers who seem to have brought the two rest. One wipes his sweat, and the other beats his straw sandals with a mallet to soften them. The sign on the pillar at right reads "Ochazuke" (rice with tea), and below it "Motoyoshi Yoshida hokuchi." Hokuchi is a tinder material that catches sparks from a flint to make a fire starter, and was a specialty of Yoshida.

Yoshida-juku was a post station on the Tokaido between Futagawa-juku and Goyu-juku, and also the fork where the Himekaido (Honzaka-do) branched off, running north of Lake Hamana. It flourished as the castle town of Yoshida Castle and as a port town on the lower Toyo River. The shop entrance becomes a frame for the whole picture, and the Fuji-viewing window creates another frame within it, in a nested composition.