Rather, the main reason they are rare is that there is only one of these (often along with some preparatory sketches), rather than the many copies of the finished print. In addition, since ukiyo-e prints were not thought of as high art, the artists' drawings did not have much value, and so were not carefully preserved.

Note that Kunisada has only drawn the pattern on the lacquered tray on her knees at one end, and on the cloth piled up behind her. This is likely because the copyist who made the hanshita-e would have understood that he needed to repeat it over the entire surface; another possibility is that is a preparatory sketch, and not the final finished drawing send to the publisher.

All the installments of the serial novel were illustrated by Kunisada, and its tremendous popularity must have inspired the creation of this series, which shows pairings between the chapters of Genji, and courtesans.

Each chapter of the 'Tale of Genji' has its own special glyph, the Genji-mon, which notionally are in the form of connected bundles of incense sticks. The one for this chapter, Chapter IX, may be seen in the shell-form cartouche at the top of the print. above another shell-form cartouche containing an image of Genji himself, with his unique hair-style.

This print is an image produced by the keyblock; a completed print is shown below.

The small black marks in the middle bottom of the image are mistakes, produced when the paper accidentally touched the part of the block which was not supposed to print, which had been gouged out with a semi-circular chisel (the traces of which are visible in the marks). They would not have affected the use of this print for its intended purpose.

Interestingly, this bridge, the Drum-Bridge (undoubtedly so named because of its semi-circular shape) at the Kameido Tenjin shrine, is also portrayed by Hokusai, in his series 'Views of Famous Bridges', and by Hiroshige, in his series 'One Hundred Famous Views of Edo'.

This print is unusually large, with the printed area measuring 25.6cm by 39.4cm, or about 10" by 15 1/2".

This is a particularly early Kunisada design, from very early in his artistic career, when his work is very similar to that of his master Toyokuni.

It is also interesting that the slanted rain is shown with a negative (i.e. white) line outside the kago, and as a positive (i.e black) line inside the kago, which lends an interesting effect. It meant that the wood of the two blocks (one for the black lines, and one for the gray background) had to be carved in opposing ways; outside the kago the line was incised into the wood of that block; inside, on the other block, it had to be left standing, and all the material around it pared down.

This print is signed (signature detail here) "Gototei Kunisada ga", "Painted by Gototei Kunisada", a name he used commonly from his early days up until about 1844.

(Translated literally, the name "Gototei" means 'Pavilion of the Fifth Ferry'; it refers to the ferry boat business which Kunisada's family owned.)

The round seal to the left of the signature is a censor seal which reads kiwame ('approved'); the rectangular seal below it is that of the publisher (not read).

(The name "Ichiyosai" was derived from the art-name ("Ichiyosei") of Tani Sogai, the leader of a poetry club which most of Kunsada's generation of students has been associated with; it had been used extensively by Kunisada as part of his art-name earlier in his career.)

Below it is the round red toshidama (literally, 'New Year's Jewel') seal of the Utagawa school.

This scarf was likely not produced by an actual tie-dying process, as that was outlawed in the early part of the century by sumptuary laws against conspicuous consumption; the labour-intensive nature of tie-dying meant that large areas of fabric covered in small patterns were expensive to produce. The cloth industry quickly recovered, however, using hand-cut stencils (a well-developed technology in Japan for producing patterns on fabric) to imitate the popular look of tie-died dots.

This print is signed (signature detail here) "Toyokuni ga", "Painted by Toyokuni".

The characters of his signature are here contained in an elongated oval version of the toshidama seal.

The oval seal to the left of the signature is a zodiacal date seal which reads "Rat/8", i.e. the eighth month of 1852; the rectangular seal below it is that of the publisher (not read).

The two round seals above them are the nanushi censor seals; these read "Muramatsu" (upper, for Muramatsu Genroku) and "Kinugasa" (lower, for Kinugasa Fusajiro).

Hiroshige is shown holding a Buddhist rosary, and wearing a greenish noshime, a robe for samurai which is worn only on special occasions, which bears four "Hiro" seals.

It is signed "Omoi kiya rakurui nagara (Shedding tears while thinking of him)", and it also bears the seal "Chōen ikku (A long trail of smoke [rises] towards the sky)", an illusion to his funeral pyre.

The print also bears a lengthy encomium by the famous poet Temmei Rojin, a close friend of Hiroshige's, including Hiroshige's jisei (death poem), which reads:

I have left my brush at Azuma (in the East)
And depart on my journey
To view the wonderful scenery of the Western Lands

Ichikawa Ebizō V (1791 - 1859) was a superb tachiyaku (an actor who specializes in male roles), and probably the most popular Kabuki actor of the nineteenth century. He was a scion of the great Ichikawa family of actors; although his father was a low-ranking samurai, his maternal grandfather was the great actor Ichikawa Danjūrō V.

His death was the occasion of a tremendous outpouring of grief among Kabuki fans, who were legion among the chōnin at that point in time.