祭屋台鳳凰図

In 1844 Hokusai was in his mid-eighties and travelling some 200 kilometres from Edo up into the mountains of Shinano, to the small town of Obuse, at the invitation of a wealthy merchant called Takai Kozan. He had reasons to work away from the capital. The Tenpo reforms of the early 1840s had clamped down hard on the print trade, banning pictures of actors and courtesans, and provincial patrons were good business. Kozan handed him the ceiling of a festival float, one of the tall wheeled carts hauled through the streets at the shrine festival. It took about half a year. The phoenix was painted to be read from underneath, by people walking beside the cart and looking up.