Mount Atago, Shiba, No. 21 in One Hundred Famous Views of Edo

Hiroshige dramatically interrupts this view from Mount Atago in the district of Shiba southwest of Edo with a figure holding an immense rice paddle. The inscription over the artist's signature to the left identifies the figure as the central actor in the "Heaping Rice Ceremony" performed at the Atago Shrine on the third day of the New Year. In real life, this man was the proprietor of the Atagoya teahouse at the top of Mount Atago. Here however he is dressed in an elaborate costume emblematic of the New Year and of prayers for its bounty.