Open Garden at Fukagawa Hachiman Shrine, No. 68 from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo

This brightly colored print shows one of the most famous temple gardens of Edo, that of Eitaiji Temple in the Fukagawa district. One special feature of the Eitaiji Temple garden was that it was open only one short period each year, beginning on the twenty-first day of the Third Month, the occasion of a memorial ceremony for Kobo Daishi, founder of the Shingon sect of Buddhism. Although typically the public was not able to view the blooming of both pink cherries and red azaleas at the same time, the scene Hiroshige depicts here would have been possible every few years thanks to the variability of the lunar calendar.