This uchiwa-e (rigid fan print) design by Hiroshige shows the autumn moon rising over the Mukojima district across the Sumida river to the north-east. The top of the torii gate (a two-column entrance to a Shinto shrine) just visible on the skyline in the centre of the print is the entrance to the Mimeguri Shrine. We are looking across from the top of a small hill to the immediate south of the Imado Bridge, visible here on the lower left, which crossed the San'yabori Canal where it joined the Sumida river on the eastern edge of the Imado Asakusa district. Known as Matsuchiyama, this hill was, and is, home to the Shoten Shrine, a popular place of pilgrimage for courtesans and others in the entertainment business. The Imado Bridge was the point at which travellers to the Yoshiwara licensed pleasure quarter would alight from the boats on which they had travelled up the Sumida river and begin the final part of their journey by foot along the Nihon Embankment. The design is one of a complete set of eight prints owned by the V&A. The Hakkei ('Eight Views') formula was a popular one, having its ultimate source in Chinese paintings of the Xiao and Xiang rivers. It was originally used in Japan in the form of poetic and painterly references to eight famous sites around Lake Biwa in south-west Japan’s Omi Province (modern Shiga Prefecture).