四ツ目ノ牡丹

About this photo

This photo shows the flower beds of the peony garden that stood at Yotsume in Honjo, Tokyo. It appears in Nihon Fukei Fuzoku Shashincho (Photo Album of Japanese Scenery and Customs), published in 1910, whose English caption describes it as a bed of peonies in Tokyo.

The Yotsume peony garden was one of the leading places to see peonies in Meiji Tokyo. It was a flower garden run by a nursery founded in Fukagawa at the end of the Edo period, and besides tree peonies it was reportedly known for herbaceous peonies (shakuyaku) and morning glories. Tokyo guidebooks and newspapers of the Meiji era often wrote about it. In 1910, the year the album came out, a newspaper reported that 4,000 people had visited on a single Sunday.

Today the area of the former garden (Mori, Koto Ward) is registered as a Koto Ward historic site, Botanen Ato (Site of the Peony Garden). The nursery's line continues today as a landscaping company, and every year it sets up a small peony shelter for passersby to enjoy.

Glossary