Iyo Province: Saijo

At right in the foreground, a mast and a large white sail stand so as to spill beyond the picture, and below the sail the blue water of an inlet spreads. On the shore at lower left are rows of houses, a pine grove, and anchored ships, which is the area of the town and harbor of Saijo.

In the middle distance green mountains overlap, and behind them a flat-topped mountain shows a reddish-brown ridge. In the upper half of the sky white birds fly in a line, and blue clouds trail. Placing a large sail in the foreground to show the scenery behind it is a device Hiroshige favored in this series.

Saijo lies in eastern Iyo, and in the Edo period it was the jinya town of the Saijo domain, a branch of the Kii Tokugawa family. The tall mountain behind is said to be Mount Ishizuchi, which drew worship as a sacred peak. Mount Ishizuchi has long been known as a mountain of Shugendo ascetic practice, and many pilgrims came from all over to climb it at the summer opening of the mountain.

The Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art also hold this same print. The National Diet Library's impression has the same composition. Showing the town and mountain through a sail in the foreground is a composition shared with the print of Nagasaki in Hizen, and it has the immediacy of a view from a traveling ship.