Edo: The Year-end Fair at Asakusa

From the foreground to the middle of the picture is drawn a crowd of people filling the temple grounds. Men in black haori coats come and go, and on both sides are stalls lined with what appear to be New Year decorations. At left the vermilion Niomon gate towers large, and a wave of people continues toward its interior.

At upper right the five-story pagoda floats among the clouds, and between the gate and the pagoda, leafless trees spread their thin branches. Snow flutters from a dark gray sky, with only the area near the horizon glowing yellow. The vermilion buildings and the bright colors of the crowd stand out in the gloom of a winter dusk.

The year-end fair at Sensoji was a market at the end of the year selling goods for the New Year, and was one of the busiest markets in Edo. People bought good-luck charms and decorations and prepared to welcome the new year.

The series assigns one design to each province, but this one alone, standing "Edo" apart from Musashi Province, represents not a province but the city where the shogun resided. It is thought to add an annual event familiar to the people of Edo. The Art Institute of Chicago does not have this design, and the image is the impression held by the Tokyo National Museum.