Japanese Maps : Honjo Fukagawa ezu

Tomatsu, Masanori, active 19th century 戸松, 昌訓

Japanese Maps

<p style='text-align: justify;'> Wood-block printed, commercial map of the districts of Honjo and Fukagawa in the city of Edo, in Japanese, one sheet, folded, oriented with north to the top. The title is reported in the left section of the map. On the surviving envelope, the title appears as "Fukagawa ezu" (深川絵図 Map of Fukagawa) with the subtitle "Kaei shinkoku" (嘉永新刻 Newly engraved in the Kaei era). The envelope also reports that the map is part of the series Ōedo kirizu (大江戸切図 Sectional map of Great Edo), more commonly known as Ōedo kiriezu (大江戸切絵図, Sectional pictorial map of Great Edo), published in Tōto ("Eastern capital", i.e. Edo). A colophon in the lower tight section reports the name of the author, Tomatsu Masanori, the date of revision Bunkyū 2 (1862), and the name of the publisher, Owariya Seishichi. The date of first publication doesn't appear, but the map was originally published in 1852.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The map is printed in five colours, used to differentiate elements in the city, and, as was common, uses pictorial representation to highlight elements of the cityscape, such as temples and shrines. By the late Edo or Tokugawa period (1603-1868), maps of Edo had become commonplace, and new, sectional (and therefore very detailed) maps of the city became popular. They reflected the growth of the Edo metropolis and how commoners such as wealthy merchants, with their culture and lifestyle, had gained relevance within it. In these sets, the city loses its centre (usually identified with Edo-castle and the warrior district in one-sheet maps) and every part of the city is represented with equal importance. </p><p style='text-align: justify;'> The shogunal vassal Sena Sadao (1716-1796) first drew a set of 8 small-sheet maps, on a scale of 1 : 5000, but they still only covered the central part of Edo. The maps were published from 1755 to 1775 by Kichimonjiya Jirobē. Later, in 1848-1855, another Edo publisher, Omiya Gohē, revised the series and enlarged it to 35 sheets, based on the map-making work of Takashiba San’yū and Murakami Goyū. In 1850, the publisher Owariya Seishichi started releasing his own set, consisting of 31 maps published in the 1850s and 1860s (all present in the Japanese 200 series, with the exception of a map of Hatchōbori), and the series became the most popular one. </p>