Seba

On the river in the foreground, a boatman poles a boat loaded with what looks like brushwood toward the right rear. Beyond it another boat can be seen. On the bank at left stand several willows, their long branches streaming in the wind. Reeds grow along the shore, and in the embankment beyond are rows of thatched-roof houses.

In the sky, long horizontal clouds trail in layers of indigo and ink, and a white full moon floats in a gap between them. The river water is an indigo gradation, deepening toward the foreground. The fine lines of the willows, the horizontal flow of the clouds, and the diagonal lines of the boats combine to express both the movement of the wind and the stillness of the night.

Seba was a post town between Motoyama and Shiojiri, and the junction post town where the Nakasendo and the Hokkoku Nishi Kaido toward Zenkoji diverged. There is a legend that the name derives from a retainer of Kiso Yoshinaka washing his horse there, but the name also appears in older records.

This is a design by Utagawa Hiroshige. It does not depict the town and expresses the post town solely through a riverside night scene. The combination of moon, willow, and boat well shows the feature of Hiroshige's landscapes that valued poetic feeling, and it is regarded as one of the most highly rated prints in the series.