Nagakubo

From the left to the middle of the picture, a long wooden bridge crosses the river. On the bridge, a person on horseback and travelers carrying loads cross as black shadow-like forms. On the right bank in the foreground stands a single pine, under which children romp with a dog and a man leading a horse heads toward a house. At the far right, the post town's houses can be seen.

The sky is a gray-blue gradation, with a full moon rising beyond the mountains. The river sinks into deeper indigo toward the foreground, and the shadows of the bridge piers are reflected in the water. By drawing the figures on the bridge as black shadows only and painting those in the foreground in color, the artist expresses distance and the quality of night light.

Nagakubo was a post town between Ashida and Wada, in the valley of the Yoda River. As the post town before the difficult Wada Pass, it is said to have bustled with travelers staying before and after the crossing. It is also known for its townscape, which bends at right angles in the kagi-no-te style.

This is a design by Utagawa Hiroshige. Moonlit scenes appear repeatedly among Hiroshige's designs for this series, and this is counted as one of the night scenes alongside Mochizuki and Seba. The same design is also at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and elsewhere, and some impressions omit the mountains in the background.