Tokyo Metropolitan Edo-Tokyo Museum
1-4-1 Yokoami, Sumida-ku, Tokyo 130-0015
TEL.+81-3-3626-9974

25(General Information)

Aug. 19 Fri. 2022 No.25

Fiscal 2021

Introducing New Acquisitions
In fiscal 2021 (ended March 31, 2022), our museum was able to make many additions to the collection,
thanks to the generous cooperation of our supporters. We introduce some of those works here.
*The explanations are by Terada Sanae, Okamoto Kaya, and Tandō Mako.


how to raise uguisu and how
birdsong competitions wereheld. The cage container
shown here was made inthe Showa period (192689) but follows the forms
shown in that book. Thecage container held not
only held the cage and thebird but also was madewith wavy interior walls, sothat the bird’s voice would
reverberate more strongly.
The lavish decoration of its
hatch gives us a sense of thecraftsmen’s skills at that time
as well as the devotion of theenthusiast to this hobby.

Cage Container, Ebony
Latter half of Showa period

3: Sashiko Quilted Local Fire Brigade Jacket

Introducing New Acquisitions

One Hundred Scenes from the Tokyo Metropolis in the Showa Era, No. 27,The May Sports Season, Jingū Gaien
By Koizumi Kishio, 1932

1: The Context of “One Hundred Scenes from theTokyo Metropolis in the Showa Era”
Women with parasols and men who look like office workers are depicted on the roadleading to the Jingū Gaien Stadium. The stadium itself is packed with spectators.
This print is from the One Hundred Scenes from the Tokyo Metropolis in theShowa Era, by Koizumi Kishio (1893-1945). He created this series to depict thenew Tokyo cityscape, after its recovery from the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923.
Koizumi pursued this project with great care. He began the series in 1930 and, still
not satisfied, continued working on it even after having reaching his objective of ahundred prints. In 1940, he selected one hundred from the group and declared theseries complete. Since this print is not given in Koizumi’s list of the finished series,
it may have been excluded. It is, however, a refreshing view of a new post-recovery
famous place in the city, with crowds of people, young and old, male and female,enjoying watching a sporting competition.

The city of Edo suffered repeated major fires. To minimize the damage, in 1720,
the neighborhoods west of the Sumida River were divided up and forty-seven (laterforty-eight) fire brigades were assigned to them. (Each brigade was given one of theJapanese syllabary as its name, in the iroha order.) Later, eighteen additional brigades
were formed, with their headquarters in Fukagawa.
The garment shown here is a sashiko quilted hanten or jacket worn by firemen in
the “Ha” unit, which was responsible for the Nihonbashi - Odenma area. A large hacharacter has been quilted on its back. Near the hem are keshifuda talismans with thename “Ha” unit and its keshikuchi written on them. The keshikuchi were the places
at which the brigade had halted the spread of a fire. The talismans with the nameof the brigade and the places it had protected celebrated the glorious deeds it hadaccomplished.
The inside of this sashiko quilted jacket is decorated with a dragon and clouddesign, plus a waterfall.
Motifs that invoke
the idea of water were
popular decorations
for these jackets. Boththe outside and insideof the jacket are thisperfectly appropriate
for a member of a local
fire brigade.

2: An equipment for a Birdsong Competition
Those enjoying the hobby of birdsong competitions would raise uguisu (bushwarblers) and other birds from infancy and teach them songs artificially, using aflute, for example. Then their owners would have the birds compete to see who had
the better singing voice.
The equipment for this pastime included a cage container and a singing stand.
They are depicted in Shunchōdan (Tales of Spring Birds, 1845), which introduces

Sashiko Quilted Hanten, worn by
the head of a local fire brigade
Late Edo period

Research Strolls

Composition: Superb Skills at Work
Katsushika Hokusai’s Picture Book:
Panoramic Views of Both Banks ofthe Sumida River

Text by Park Mihee, Curator

Katsushika Hokusai is the most famous ukiyo-e artist in the world. He is best known
for Sketches by Hokusai and Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, but his extensive oeuvre
also included many illustrated books of kyōka, satirical verses. More than forty of
those collections are known today, including Picture Book of Kyōka: Mountains Upon
Mountains, Sumida River, and A View of the Famous Sights of the Eastern Capital. Oneof Hokusai’s signature works in this genre is his Picture Book: Panoramic Views of BothBanks of the Sumida River. Hokusai, who was born in what is now the Kamezawa areaof Sumida City and had a thorough knowledge of the course of the Sumida River,developed a group of subjects and a carefully calculated composition in this picture
book, which is regarded as a work incorporating several rules he set himself.
One of those rules was that each two-page spread in the book was completed
so that all the illustrations connected, as in a picture scroll. A second is that thebook proceeds upriver on the Sumida, including famous places along both banks.
Moreover, he has followed the flow of the four seasons, presenting each place inthe season that reveals its glory most attractively. In conformity with the third rule,
he would depict the scenes and people in accord with the seasons. Meeting thoserequirements while creating this work required precise calculations and great skill on
the part of the artist. Hokusai not only followed those rules but earnestly and clearly
depicted the course of the Sumida River.
For example, let us have a look at the series of illustrations that address theMatsuchiyama Shōden temple. In ukiyo-e paintings and prints, because the temple
overlooks the Sumida River and is on a small hill quite near the Takeya ferry crossing,
the area as a whole is often addressed from a bird’s-eye-view perspective and the heightof the hill is exaggerated. Hokusai, however, boldly captures the Matsuchiyama Shōden
in an entire two-page spread, depicting it looking down on the Mimeguri Shrine onthe opposite side of the river. His rendering adopts a different point of view but sharesthe emphasis on height with other examples. The stone torii gate in the foreground,which links to the picture on the previous two pages, is positioned to contrast with thetorii at Mimeguri Shrine while emphasizing the comparison formed by single-point
perspective.
The next scene is the workshop area at Imado, against a background of the Sumida
River at sunset. Comparing this picture with an illustrated map suggests that the groveof trees depicted across the river is probably around the Shirahige Shrine. Looking
closely at the center of the grove, we can see what appears to be a small rendering of thetorii of Shirahige Shrine.
Picture Book: Panoramic Views of Both Banks of the Sumida River, Hokusai has
brilliantly met his requirements by bringing together scenes on both sides of the riverand individual places in a manner not seen in conventional views of the setting andfamous places. It is a Sumida River landscape that only Hokusai, with his characteristicbrilliance, could create.

Shirahige Shrine

Chōmeiji Temple
Kōfukuji Temple
Mimeguri Shrine
Ushijima Shrine

Imado Bridge

Large Illustrated Mapof Edo, Tenpō Revision(detail), 1846

Matsuchiyama Shōden

Picture Book: PanoramicViews of Both Banks ofthe Sumida River
By Katsushika Hokusai,
Tsuruya Kiuemon, publisher.
Evening Glow at Imado Shirahige Kijimatsu Pines

Autumn Foliage at Matsuchiyama

Prayers at Hanakawado Shower at Mukōjima

Hyper Edohaku, our smartphone app, has been launched!
On April 22, we released Hyper Edohaku, our app forsmart phones. The app has had recreated in 3D basedon the Edo-Tokyo Museum’s model of the area to thewest of Ryōgokubashi Bridge. Scattered among this3D rendering, overflowing with diverse people andcommodities, are one hundred items selected from theEdo-Tokyo Museum’s collection for you to find. Showtents presenting various spectacles, fires, fireworks,
and a variety of characters like Hokusai designed on
the basis of Edo-period materials: your chance to meetthem awaits you. This is the first museum-provided
app in Japan making full use of a game engine. Beto sure to enjoy the “walking with it around Edo”
sensation it delivers.
(Haruki Shoko, Curator)

Download the app here.