Ryogoku hanabi (Fireworks at Ryogoku bridge)

Hiroshige’s Ryogoku hanabi captures one of the most celebrated summer spectacles of Edo. Fireworks at Ryōgoku Bridge became an annual tradition in 1733, when the eighth Tokugawa shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune, commissioned the first official display as part of a memorial observance for those who had died during a cholera epidemic. The event subsequently developed into one of Edo’s most anticipated seasonal pleasures, drawing large crowds to the Sumida River.

A similar impression is in the collection of the Harvard Art Museum, see object number: 1949.146.23.