Nihon Bridge and Edo Bridge (Nihonbashi Edobashi), from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei)

No. 43 (summer section) on the title page for the series. A section of the railing on the Nihonbashi, or Japan Bridge, its post capped with an ornamental bronze almost glows in the sunlight. At the right we see a symbol of early summer: a street merchant carries a tub of fish from the Uogashi market located nearby. Nihonbashi, as the starting point for all five major highways into Edo, bustled with people early each morning as hundreds of ships passed below, a marker of the prosperity of the era. Off in the distance we see the Edobashi, or Edo Bridge, and the whitewashed walls of merchant storehouses with the morning sun rising beyond them.