Harima Province: Maiko Beach

In the foreground, thick reddish-brown pine trunks rise from left and right, their roots spreading over the sand. Behind them similar pines line the beach, and waves edged in white roll onto the shore. Under the pine grove at back right are a roof that seems to be a teahouse and the small figures of people walking on the beach.

The reddish brown of the trunks and the deep blue-green of the needles clustered at the branch tips fill the picture decoratively. At left the sea and sky spread out pale, and the lines of the twisting trunks convey both the age of the pines and the wind blowing across the beach. Waves rolling in at the boundary between the white of the beach and the indigo of the sea are drawn in fine lines.

Maiko Beach is a scenic spot of white sand and green pines facing the Akashi Strait, and the Saigoku Kaido road ran along it. It was known for pines with raised roots and old pines of beautiful form, and is thought to have been a famous place where travelers stopped.

This print is placed after Oki in the series. Impressions are also held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Tokyo National Museum, and the National Diet Library's impression has the same composition. Placing pine trunks large in the foreground is one of the devices Hiroshige used late in life to show boldly the near view.