• View of Kyoto (<i>Kyōto no zu</i>: 京都ノ図) from the chuban series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road (<i>Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi no uchi</i>: 東海道五十三次之内)
View of Kyoto (<i>Kyōto no zu</i>: 京都ノ図) from the chuban series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road (<i>Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi no uchi</i>: 東海道五十三次之内)
View of Kyoto (<i>Kyōto no zu</i>: 京都ノ図) from the chuban series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road (<i>Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi no uchi</i>: 東海道五十三次之内)
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Utagawa Kunisada (歌川国貞) / Toyokuni III (三代豊国) (artist 1786 – 01/12/1865)

View of Kyoto (Kyōto no zu: 京都ノ図) from the chuban series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road (Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi no uchi: 東海道五十三次之内)

Print

ca 1838
Signed: Kōchōrō Kunisada ga (香蝶楼国貞画)
Publisher: Sanoya Kihei (Marks 446, seal: 25-210 Sanoki in red)
Censor's seal: kiwame
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Ritsumeikan University
Honolulu Museum of Art
Library of Congress
Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna
National Diet Library
Fujisawa Museum of Art
Spencer Museum of Art
Royal Museums of Art and History, Belgium (via Cultural Japan)
Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art - they date their copy to 1836
Bryn Mawr
Portland Art Museum Kunisada's chuban Bijin Tōkaidō (東海道美人) series was first published around 1833, after Hiroshige's famous series was underway but not yet complete.

This is number 56 in the series. The copy in the Ritsumeikan University, which they date to 1836, has a striated blue and white horizon line just beyond the buildings.

There is no direct Hiroshige print we know of which references the background of this Kunisada image. That's okay. A fanciful architectural setting is fine with us.

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Illustrated in a small color reproduction in Kunisada's Tokaido: Riddles in Japanese Woodblock Prints by Andreas Marks, Hotei Publishing, 2013, page 76, T24-55B.
Sanoya Kihei (佐野屋喜兵衛) (publisher)
landscape prints (fūkeiga 風景画) (genre)