Kinokunizaka in the Rainy Season, later edition (orig. 1938)
by Kasamatusu Shiro
IHL Cat. #2059
About This Print
A mother and her child, parasols deployed against a light rain, walk along the pathway near the Imperial Palace's Bankeibori moat in Kasamatsu's atmospheric print. A large pine tree dominates the foreground while the mist shrouds the Palace in the background.
The slope is named after the vast mansion of the Kishū Tokugawa family that existed on the west side of Kinokuni slope throughout the Edo period.
Kinokuni-zaka, was the subject of a number of late-Edo and Meiji era prints, including the two prints below by Utagawa Hiroshige I and Kobayashi Kiyochika. Today a signpost marks the west side of the slope.
Kinokuni Hill and Distant View of Akasaka Tameike from the series One Hundred Views of Edo, 1856-1858 by Utagawa Hiroshige I
Kinokuni Slope in Akasaka, 1880 by Kobayashi Kiyochika
紀伊国坂
きのくにざか 坂の西側に江戸時代を通じて、紀州（和歌山県）徳川家の広大な屋敷があったことから呼ばれた。赤坂の起源とする説がある。
"Kinokunizaka" is named after the vast mansion of the Tokugawa family of Kishu (present-day Wakayama Prefecture) that existed on the west side of the slope throughout the Edo period. There is a theory that it is the origin of Akasaka.
