Wakamatsu, Aizu District, Oshu (Famous Places in the Provinces of Japan)

From the foreground to the back, a basin surrounded by mountains, with fields and rivers, spreads out, and at the lower right a castle town lined with stone walls and turrets is depicted. A yellow label reads "Wakamatsu Castle." Beyond it a large lake labeled "Lake Inawashiro" spreads in blue, and at the left rises a large mountain with yellow-green slopes. The upper part of the sky is shaded in deep indigo.

Short red strip-shaped labels stand here and there in the picture, inscribed with the names of towns, villages, temples and shrines, and mountains. In the red frame at the upper right is "Famous Places in the Provinces and Districts of Great Japan," in a yellow frame the title "Oshu Aizu District, Wakamatsu," and at the upper left a short note on the names of Lake Inawashiro is added. It is characterized by bringing the lake closer to the castle town than it actually is, presenting the scene as both a map and a landscape painting. The large mountain at the left is said, judging from its position, to be Mount Bandai.

Sadahide was a pupil of Utagawa Kunisada (Toyokuni III) and took the art name Gountei. He is known for Yokohama-e depicting the newly opened port of Yokohama and foreigners, and for bird's-eye views looking down on broad areas from a height, and as an ukiyo-e artist he also submitted works to the 1867 Paris Exposition.

The year of publication, 1868 (Meiji 1), was also the year the castle town of Wakamatsu became a battlefield in the Boshin War. It is owned by the National Diet Library, which makes it available in its Digital Collections.