FAQ
30. Plum Estate, Kameido (Kameido Umeyashiki) (11th Month, 1857)
30.1478.30
Hiroshige brings us face to face with the celebrated "Sleeping Dragon Plum" of Kameido. This tree, the most famous in Edo, was known for the purity of its double blossoms, which, according to one Edo guidebook, were "so white when full in bloom as to drive off the darkness." We are so close that we can almost smell the tree's powerful fragrance, reputed to have lured the shogun Yoshimune as he passed nearby in the early eighteenth century.
Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum