Shimosuwa

The center of the picture is the guest room of an inn, where four or five guests sit before their trays enjoying a meal behind the opened shoji. A serving woman attends to the guests, and cups and dishes are set out on the floor. At the left rear is a bathroom, and a person can be seen soaking in the tub. A veranda and garden are drawn in the foreground.

A large thatched roof covers the top of the picture, and the room below is cut out as if in a frame. The white of the shoji, the green of the tatami, and the brown of the pillars and veranda are neatly combined, and the blue pattern on the sliding doors at the back adds variety of color. The difference between the darkness outside and the brightness of the room conveys the night.

Shimosuwa was a temple town at the gates of the lower shrine of Suwa Taisha and a post town where the Nakasendo and the Koshu Kaido merged. Known as a post town with hot springs, it was probably a precious lodging where travelers who had crossed the difficult Wada Pass could bathe and relax.

This is a design by Utagawa Hiroshige. It is a rare print that depicts the interior of an inn rather than a landscape, showing the life of the post town up close. Hiroshige also drew the inside of inns in his Tokaido series, but here the subject is the relaxation typical of a hot-spring inn.