Utagawa Hiroshige III. Famous Places of Tokyo: The Great Gate of Yoshiwara in Full Bloom / Fan print, late 1870s.

Artist: Utagawa Hiroshige III [三代目 歌川 広重] (Japanese, 1842/3 – 1894); civil name: 安藤徳兵衛 (Andō Tokubei), address: 深川平野町三丁目 (Fukagawa, Hiranochō 3-chōme)

Signed: Hiroshige ga (廣重画)

Publisher: Ebiya Rinnosuke [海老屋林之助] (Japanese, fl. c. 1832–1895); seal Ueki Rinnosuke [植木林之助], shop name 大坂屋 (Ōsakaya), address: 日本橋区江戸町二丁目 (Nihonbashi-ku, Edomachi 2-chōme)

Date: Unreadable Meiji seal, likely late 1870s.

Media: Woodblock colour print, chūban uchiwa-e (fan print), 223 x 245 mm

Title: 東京名所 よし原 大門 体のあの さかり (Tokyo meisho Yoshiwara Ōmon tai no ano sakari; Famous Places of Tokyo: The Great Gate of Yoshiwara in Full Bloom)

Street view, looking inward from the lower edge. The scene shows the Ōmon (Great Gate) of Yoshiwara, the licensed pleasure district of Edo and later Tokyo, during the Meiji period.  At left, cherry trees bloom behind wooden fences, with lanterns set out for evening illumination. A woman and child in seasonal kimono walk past while a rickshaw carries a passenger toward the inner quarters. At right, shops line the street under noren curtains. One shop attendant, a woman in a purple kōshi (格子, checkered) kimono, leans forward to speak with a customer. The shop’s decorative wall hangings depict Mount Fuji and cherry blossoms. In the distance, a stone pedestal with a gas lamp stands at the centre, marking the former threshold into the Yoshiwara district.

The colour palette reflects typical Meiji-period printing innovations, using at least seven distinct pigments, likely including imported aniline dyes:

• Brilliant aniline purple
• Bright red
• Verdigris green

And more traditional pigments such as yellow, blue, brown, and pink.

This is what the place looked like in the mid-19th century, before the ‘Meiji reforms’.