“Fifty-three Pairings for the Tōkaidō Road” (Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui) series – 34th station Yoshida

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 Yoshida station depicts the veranda of a brothel, where an attractive girl lures a customer in a pilgrim’s hat. At the Yoshida station, there were 65 inns. Yoshida was famous for its waitresses meshimori onna. (See Helena Honcoopová, Kunisada, Praha 2005, p. 101)