Japan: Agematsu-juku (___), Station 38 of 'The Sixty-Nine Stations of the Nakasendo (Kisokaido)' Utagawa Hiroshige (1835-1838)

The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaid_ (________ Kiso Kaid_ Rokuj_ky_-tsugi) or Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Road, is a series of ukiyo-e works created by Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) and Keisai Eisen (1790-1848). There are 71 total prints in the series (one for each of the 69 post stations and Nihonbashi; Nakatsugawa-juku has two prints). The common name for the Kiso Kaid_ is 'Nakasend_' or 'Central Mountain Highway', so this series is salso commonly referred to as the Sixty-nine Stations of the Nakasend_. The Nakasend_ was one of the Five Routes constructed under Tokugawa Ieyasu, a series of roads linking the historical capitol of Edo with the rest of Japan. The Nakasend_ connected Edo with the then-capital of Kyoto. It was an alternate route to the T_kaid_ and travelled through the central part of Honsh_, thus giving rise to its name, which means 'Central Mountain Road'. Along this road, there were sixty-nine different post stations (<i>-shuku</i> or <i>-juku</i>), which provided stables, food, and lodging for travelers. Eisen produced the first 11 prints of the series, from Nihonbashi to Honj_-shuku, stretching from Tokyo to Saitama Prefecture. After that, Hiroshige took over production of the series. (Photo by: Pictures From History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)