Nagato Province: Shimonoseki

The left of the picture is occupied by a large Japanese ship with a tall mast, its gunwale piled with cargo like rice bales. On the small boat in the foreground, the boatman poles while two women sit. In the sea in the middle several ships with lowered sails lie at anchor, and at back right a green island and cape and, far off, white sails in dots can be seen.

The hull is cut off large at the edge of the picture, and depth is created by the small boat in front and ships in the distance. The indigo of the sea is deeper nearer to us, the sky is shaded lighter from top to bottom, and a line of wild geese adds movement to the sky over the quiet harbor.

Shimonoseki was formerly called Akamagaseki, a port facing the strait that separates Honshu from Kyushu. In the Edo period it flourished as a port of call where Kitamae-bune ships entered the Seto Inland Sea from the Sea of Japan, bustling with many cargo ships and merchants.

Published in Ansei 3 (1856), this is a print from a later period of the series. Impressions with the same composition are held by the Tokyo National Museum and the National Diet Library. Drawing a large cargo ship to fill the picture, it conveys well the vigor of a port that prospered on maritime shipping.