Background
Sadanobu's series Meisho Edo hyakkei harimaze was issued circa 1858 as reduced-size and cropped versions of Utagawa Hiroshige's Meisho Edo
hyakkei ("One hundred views of the famous places in Edo") of 1856-68. Each print offers five scenes from the Edo series. Compare the
present example — with views clearly meant to be copies of Hiroshige's originals — with Sadanobu's Gohyaku
Rakan design in the style of Hiroshige.
Harimaze ("mixed-paste prints") were images intended to be cut out from their original sheets and pasted into albums and scrapbooks,
or mounted to screens.
Design
The scenes shown here are (counter-clockwise from top, then center): (1) Suruga-chô; (2) Shiba Atagoyama; (3) Kameido
Umeyashiki; (4) Kameido Tenjin keidai; and (5) Yotsuya Maitô Shinjuku. Although none of the views were meant to be exact
copies, it is interesting that Sadanobu reconfigured two of Hiroshige's designs to work more effectively within his segmented composition. The
Suruga-chô design uses the same elements but alters the perspective so that the view is from below rather than from above, and the
support post in Shiba Atagoyama was brought much closer to the messenger carrying the giant paddle, as if the viewer had relocated farther
to the left.
This impression is probably a middle-edition printing. There are later-edition sheets with color shifts toward a brighter Meiji-period palette,
such as the blue in the skies replaced by red.
References: OSP, nos. 300-301