Mount Fuji from the Tea Plantation of Katakura in Suruga Province (Sunshū Katakura-chaen no Fuji)

Catalog note / 解説

In this print Hokusai depicts the work and life of a tea plantation in Suruga province (now included in Shizuoka prefecture). Although no one knows when tea cultivation started in Shizuoka, its production in this region was already renowned during the Muromachi period (1329-1573). Since that time, Shizuoka has provided tea to all Japan, and now even to the world. One of Hokusai’s detailed compositions, the print shows a plantation edged by a winding stream in the middle ground. Rows of women wearing round bamboo hats pick tea leaves. Across another green field, probably another tea field, the snow-covered Mount Fuji rises. In the foreground, men transport the freshly picked tea leaves to st…