Utagawa Kunisada 歌川 国貞 (Toyokuni III)

Three elaborately dressed women dine on crabs and drink sake while they wait for the moon to appear over Shinagawa Bay in Edo (modern Tokyo) on the twenty-sixth day of the seventh month. On this night, it was believed that the Buddha Amida would appear with two bodhisattva attendants, Kannon and Seishi.

The publisher has included his mark on the lanterns on this veranda as a form of self-advertisement. It appears again on a single lantern in the print for The Twelfth Month.

Since spring marks the beginning of the lunar year, the seventh month, which is the first month of autumn, usually falls in August in our calendar. These women are seeking to escape the heat on a veranda above the river, while other residents of the city are seen in the distance cooling themselves by boating in the moonlight.