Edo Through a Cat’s Eyes, 1857/1858

A fluffy white cat sits on a window ledge — but where is it, and what is it watching?

Step inside the room: tatami flooring, a latticed window, a used towel and ceramic bowl in the corner, bird-patterned wallpaper beneath the ledge. Behind a tall screen lie four kumade-shaped hairpins, one just shifted, as if recently tried on. Beside them rests a roll of onkotogami, the ‘bedroom paper.’
Everything points to a yūjo’s chamber in the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter.

The title tells us exactly where: Asakusa Ricefields and the Tori-no-machi Festival.
Through the window, we see the November crowds heading toward Ōtori Shrine, many carrying giant kumade charms — bamboo rakes meant to ‘rake in’ fortune. Beyond them stretch the ricefields, farmhouses, flying geese, Shōtōji temple, and Mt. Fuji glowing in the dusk. One of Edo’s great annual spectacles, captured by Hiroshige.

Inside the room, those kumade hairpins might have been gifts from clients returning from the fair. The cat gazes out freely, but the woman herself is confined. In Edo literature, women in Yoshiwara were often likened to ‘birds in a cage’ — echoed here by the inward-facing birds on the wallpaper. She can receive the festival’s joy, but cannot join it.

Why the cat?
Edo was a city of cats — pets, mousers, symbols of luck. But here, the cat becomes a quiet stand-in for the woman: watching the world beyond the lattice, longing yet bound, a reflection of mono-no-aware — the beauty and ache of awareness.

Today, the Tori-no-Ichi festival still fills November nights in Asakusa. As visitors pray for luck and raise their decorated kumade, Hiroshige’s scene reminds us that presence and absence often coexist — those who can join the celebration, and those who can only watch from behind the window.

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