Kisokaidô: Sakamoto - Station 17

There were two major checkpoints on the Kisokaido road: At Usui and at Kiso-Fukushima and two smaller ones at Fuwa (Sekigahara and Ausaka (Otsu). The purposes of these checkpoints were to ensure that the Daimyo’s wives which were held hostages in Edo did not escape, to ensure that no firearms were imported or smuggled and to check on people such as peasants which were not supposed to leave their village or their clan’s territory. Sakamoto was just before the first checkpoint located at the Usui-pass. The Usui-pass at 1200m or 4,000ft is the first difficulty of the itinerary. It was an important station with two honjin, two waki-honjin and 40 inns where the travelers could rest before the ascension or before the crossing of the long Kanto plain towards Edo. Eisen chose to depict the main street in early morning with a channeled stream running through the centre and the roadside with bustling shops and inns. Beyond looms Mt.Haneishi and a range of mountains appears in the right background as the rosy pink dawn rises.

This print is never signed. As with the Itahana print, the drawing appears to be in Eisen’s hand while the title is written with Hiroshige’s script. It is thought to have been left incomplete by Eisen and finished by Hiroshige. This hypothesis is most likely as not a single print of this station with Hoeido seal is known to exist. In the early printing, an extra block is used on the mountain to exaggerate its steepness and roughness, the sky is rose with a blue gradation. In latter printing, the surface of the mountain lacks the extra block and appears smooth. The sky is printed blue with no pink and the scene is rendered as night instead of dawn.

(Source: The 69 stations of the Kisokaido, Sebastian Izzard, Brazillier 2008)