“Fifty-three Pairings for the Tōkaidō Road” (Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui) series – 3rd station Kanagawa

The theme of the main painting from this series, covering two of the bottom thirds of the vertical format ōban, is not a landscape around a station on the Tōkaidō road, but an illustration of legends, historical stories and contemporary events related to the painting. Such an illustration is usually figural in nature. The painting of the Kanagawa station depicts the semi-figure of a fisherman’s daughter in a boat holding a lobster or crayfish in her hand. The text and the print’s head describe the legend of the well-known fisherman Urashima and his trip to the underwater realm. (See Helena Honcoopová, Kunisada, Praha 2005, p. 101)