Kakegawa Station, Some Six Miles to Fukuroi

Artist Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1849)

Datecommissioned for 1804

MediumTwo color woodblock prints

DimensionsPart a: 5 3/8 × 6 15/16 inches (13.7 × 17.6 cm);
Part b: 5 1/8 × 7 1/8 inches (13 × 18.1 cm)

ClassificationsPrints

Credit LineGift of Joanna Haab Schoff, Class of 1955

Terms

Surimono
Color woodblock print
Poetry
Women
Japanese

Object number2011.017.008 a,b

Label CopyCommissioned by the Jar Circle (Tsubo gawa) for 1804, Year of the Rat Aoyagi wo Let’s prepare Tatenuki ni shite Green willow Atsuraen For the slats Goza-me migoto ni Of a mat wonderfully Tsukuru Kakegawa Made at Kakegawa —Asabaan Otoyoshi This print is one of an extended series based on the rest stops along the Tokaido road, the highway that ran between the Shogun’s castle at Edo and Kyoto, the home of the Imperial Court. This piece focuses on straw mats (goza), a popular product of Kakegawa, the twenty-seventh station along this “Eastern Sea Road.” Hokusai has substituted beautiful women for the ordinary mat shop workers, and the verse in parallel fashion suggests replacing the regular material for the mats with willow, suitable for springtime. The curtain behind the women has the symbol of the Tsubo (“Jar”) Circle, which commissioned the set. The titles of the prints in this series provide practical information, useful to travelers and curiosity seekers. This print explains that the next established rest area (toward Kyoto) is two ri (one ri=2.44 miles, almost 4 km) and 16 cho (one cho=2.45 acres, or about 109 meters) from Kakegawa. Although the Tsubo Circle originally commissioned this series of prints, an enterprising publisher decided to reuse the original blocks for a commercial edition, produced without the poetry. The coloring of this later example is brighter, in part due to the stronger, coarser pigments employed in the commercial edition.

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