Fireworks at Ryōgoku (Ryōgoku hanabi), from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei)

A night sky bursts into bloom over a crowded river, where small boats cluster beneath a long wooden bridge as fireworks scatter light above them. The scene glows in muted gray and blue tones with touches of gold, suggesting smoke and distant color against the dark water. This print, titled Fireworks at Ryōgoku, belongs to the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, created in 1858 as a color woodblock print in oban format, now held at the Art Institute of Chicago. Its maker, Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858), worked within the Utagawa school and is also known for Eight Views of Ōmi. Worth noticing is how the silhouettes of the boats and bridge anchor the composition, grounding the fleeting brightness of the fireworks against the steady dark surface of the river below.