A courtesan of the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter sits looking out from a window on the upper-storey of a teahouse whilst workmen are busy repairing the building's roof above. The woman looks out over the Sumida river, to the Embankment of Japan (Nihon-tsutsumi), the path that lead patrons of the Yoshiwara from the river along rice fields to the pleasure quarter.

For this work, Hokusai has deliberately transferred the location of the original poem by the poet Ise from the Naniwa Inlet (the ancient name for the region around Osaka), to Edo and it's famous pleasure quarters.