Akasaka: Inn with Serving Maids (Akasaka, ryosha shōfu no zu 赤坂 旅舎招婦ノ図), from the series “Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō” (Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi no uchi 東海道五十三次之内),

ca. 1833–34 [Tenpō 4–5]

The Tōkaidō Road was a three-hundred-mile route that connected the two most important cities in Edo-period (1600–1868) Japan: the capital city of Edo (present-day Tokyo) and Kyoto. Travel along the road was punctuated by fifty-five official stops or stations. As a major route for traders and tourists that was both functional and scenic, the Tōkaidō Road was a popular subject for Japanese artists during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Andō Hiroshige, one of the most famous Japanese woodblock print artists, returned to the subject multiple times. He first traveled and sketched the route in 1832. The following year he produced his celebrated series Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō. Its immense popularity led Hiroshige to create more than twenty further series on the subject before his death.