Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861) | View of the Great Waterfall, Oyama (Oyama sekison otaki no zu) | Edo period, 19th century

Oyama mountain was a popular pilgrimage site during the summer. Some way up the mountain was this large waterfall and depicted here are a group of men bathing and performing ablutions (misogi). As noted in Robert Schaap, Heroes and Ghosts: Japanese Prints by Kuniyoshi 1797-1861, (The Netherlands, 1998), cat. no. 215, p. 194, it has been proposed that the third standing man from the left, with tattooed upper body and outstretched arm holding a lantern inscribed Kuniyoshi, could be the artist himself.

For another impression of the same print in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art, go to: https://honolulumuseum.org/collections/3581/