Outdoor Tea Stall at Fukuroi

A dejaya is a roadside teahouse simply enclosed with reed screens. On the left of the picture, a person from the shop crouches to stoke the fire in a stone stove under a kettle hanging from a tree branch. The bottom of the kettle is black with soot, showing that it is a tool used every day.

To the right of the stove, a palanquin bearer is about to light his pipe from the fire, and on the bench at left a traveler sits resting. Smoke rises thickly, and the white of steam and smoke adds softness to the picture.

On the right side, broad fields spread out, and a small bird sits on top of a signboard. Fukuroi is the 27th station, counted either from Nihonbashi or from Kyoto, and lies exactly at the middle of the Tokaido. This is a print that takes as its subject not a famous sight but an unremarkable rest on the road.

Most of the picture is empty fields, road, and sky. By pushing the figures and teahouse to the left and leaving a large blank space on the right, the print conveys a rest stop standing alone on a wide plain. Even small things, such as the placard hung on the tree trunk and the stonework of the stove, are carefully drawn.