Comment - Scene of a beauty riding piggyback across the water on the back of a porter. Her servant boy following them. The shore is busy at low tide, with visitors flying kites (Tako, たこ), vendors selling goods to a man in western outfit. He maybe is selling octopus, hence the title of the print "Famous Enshu Octopus" (Meibutsu Enshū tako;名物遠州たこ), with the descriptor "tako" (for kite or octopus) as a synonym for "kite" ("凧") as a flying object( cf. the last character ("凧") of the otherwise not read text above). A young boy is scaling a large fish, and several boats are anchored in the shallow waters. One man is tending a fire on his boat with gray smoke billing up to the sky. Fine bokashi shading in the water and sky. Fukuroi is the 28th Station of the Tôkaidô, connecting Edo with Kyoto, a subject, his master Hiroshige featured before him.

A white diamond shaped kite with a long paper tail flows above the shallow waters, a ship carries a white nobori banner.

Series - Famous Sights of the Fifty-three Stations (Gojûsan tsugi meisho zue, 五十三次名所図会), also known as the Vertical Tôkaidô.


Artist - see Biography


Signature - Hiroshige-ga (広重画) (as HIROSHIGE-II) lower right, light blue cassette with his seal, and a circular censor's seal above.


Publisher - Koyasu (濃安) (seal)


Image Size -   25.70 cm X  37.3 cm    (9 3/4" x 14 1/8") + margins as shown)


Condition - single sheet; nishiki-e (cloured woodblock); Vertical ôban; Tate-e (portrait)