Like his master, Hiroshige II also produced popular series of prints of the fifty-three stages of the Tōkaidō highway....  In the equivalent print of the same place by his master Hiroshige I the scene itself is almost identical, with the round-topped Mount Kōrai dominating the middle-ground, and the snow-capped iconic Mount Fuji just peeping into view behind it.  Because the later one is laid out vertically (portrait format) and the older one is landscape, the same geographical features have been squashed up and a further mountain omitted.  The major difference between the two pictures however is that whereas in the first Hiroshige’s picture the two human figures are humble messengers or carriers, the younger Hiroshige’s picture depicts what seems to be part of a daimyō procession heralded by the plumed pike carried in front. Presumably the daimyō or other important personage is in the palanquin (kago) being carried by two retainers, who all have two swords, the mark of samurai rank. A local person is performing an obeisance, the hat removed to show respect.  In the Edo period, one of the means of social control by the Shogun was to enforce alternate attendance in Edo by the regional daimyō, who had to spend every alternate year in their domains and in every other year make the often difficult journey to Edo where their wives and families were in permanent residence. - Associate Professor Alison Tokita, Monash University