View of the Open Plain at Okegawa Station

At the left foreground stands a deep-eaved straw-roofed house, on whose veranda a man leans out, and something like red leaves hangs from the eaves. In the yard a woman sits handling cut ears of grain, and in front of her a traveler holding his hat bows deeply. Bundles of straw are propped beside the house.

In the middle a young tree spreads its branches, and a flock of sparrows flies about. Beyond it a broad grassy plain continues to the horizon, with a person on horseback traveling a distant road. Red horizontal clouds trail across the sky, and Eisen captures human life and the broad land in a single picture.

Okegawa-juku was a station where safflower, indigo, wheat, and other crops produced in the neighborhood were gathered, and the safflower in particular was known as the second-best producing area after Mogami. "Koh-gen" (broad plain) in the title is a word for a wide, open field.

This is a print by Eisen, with the title written as "Kiso Kaido." It has no signature but bears the publisher's seal. Even among Eisen's prints that draw figures large, this one combines a wide field landscape with human life, and has something in common with the pastoral landscapes of the later Hiroshige.