Annaka

A reddish-brown slope climbs diagonally from front to back through the center of the picture. In the lower part, travelers in hats form a line, some carrying loads, and climb the slope. Yellow straw-roofed teahouses and houses line the side of the road, and small figures can be seen at the top of the slope too.

Large whitish slopes rise on the left and right, and a blue-green meadow spreads at lower right. A tree with fine branches stands at the top of the slope, and the sky is stained red. The composition, which divides the picture with large slopes and strings people along a narrow slope road, conveys the difficulty of an uphill climb.

Annaka-juku sits on a river terrace between the Usui River and the Tsukumo River, and was also the castle town of the Annaka domain. The "Annaka" in the title is written with different characters in the print.

This is a print by Hiroshige. The series began publication from Hoeido, and Kinjudo (Ise-ya Rihei) is said to have joined later. Drawing the line of travelers on a slope small and showing the scene through the scale of the terrain is a device that recurs in Hiroshige's prints of the mountainous Nakasendo, letting the viewer feel the height of the slope.