Signed: Zen Hokusai I’itsu hitsu; Publisher’s seal: Eijudō (Nishimuraya Yohachi); censor’s seal: kiwame; ōban, yoko-e, 26.0 x 38.5 cm; aizuri-e with fukibokashi

From “36 Views of Mount Fuji”. A large boat, partially obscured by a precipice in the foreground, can be seen on the edge of Lake Kasumigaura, the second-largest lake in Japan. Someone is pouring water over the side from a rice pot. Rising up in the background is Fuji, which must be at least 100 kilometres away. This print is an excellent early edition of this successful design, printed in fine quality in shades of blue, unlike the poor-quality prints of the same motif found later, often also printed in unpleasant shades of pink.

F. Tikotin, La Tour de Peilz (December, 1964); Baltus, Brussels
Riese Collection #125

Very few impressions convey the quiet poetry of this twilight scene, one of the finest prints in the Fuji series. A ship is moored among the reeds at Kasumigaura, the Bay of Mist. One of the sailors leans out to pour away the water he had used for washing rice for the evening meal. Another member of the crew sits on the deck and leans into the cooking area. In the distance Fuji rises above the reeds and houses along the shore. Two cranes rise through the reeds at the right, the only moving creatures in the picture.
Most impressions of this print are very late and poor, often printed with particularly offensive pink. The earliest impressions, also printed in blue, are before the oblique wide break through the reeds at the right of the print parallel to but below the slope of the mountain visible on this print.
An impression of the early state, in the Rouart collection, is reproduced in Vignier and Inada, Eishi, Chōki, Hokusai, no. 250, pl. LXXVI.

Reproduced in: Ingelheim catalogue, no. 108.