Returning Sails at Tsukudajima, from the series Eight Views of Edo

1790-1799

The artist Utagawa Toyohiro took the Chinese motif of the returning sailboat and relocated it to the shores of a small island that was then situated at the mouth of the Sumida River, just outside of Edo (modern-day Tokyo). (The island has since been absorbed by landfill.) Delicate black lines and the use of gray and brown ink in this print—and in the adjacent print by Toyohiro’s student, Hiroshige—make direct reference to traditional East Asian ink landscape paintings.