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Lot 506
KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760-1849) Edo period (1615-1868), circa 1830-1831
18 September 2024, 10:00 EDT
New YorkSold for US$889,500 inc. premium
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KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760-1849)
Edo period (1615-1868), circa 1830-1831
An ōban yoko-e print entitled Kanagawa-oki nami-ura (Under the Wave off Kanagawa), from the series Fugaku sanjūrokkei (36 Views of Mount Fuji), depicting a towering wave above three boats, the series' eponymous mountain in the distance, signed Hokusai aratame Iitsu hitsu, published by Nishimuraya Yohachi (Eijudō)
10 1/4 x 14 1/2in (26 x 36.8cm)
An ōban yoko-e print entitled Kanagawa-oki nami-ura (Under the Wave off Kanagawa), from the series Fugaku sanjūrokkei (36 Views of Mount Fuji), depicting a towering wave above three boats, the series' eponymous mountain in the distance, signed Hokusai aratame Iitsu hitsu, published by Nishimuraya Yohachi (Eijudō)
10 1/4 x 14 1/2in (26 x 36.8cm)
Footnotes
Bonhams is especially proud and excited to have this rare opportunity to offer an outstanding impression of a globally celebrated image. Titled in Japanese Kanagawa-oki nami-ura (Under the Wave off Kanagawa), but almost universally known outside its country of origin as the "Great Wave," it is, of course, by far the most famous print in a famous series, Fugaku sanjūrokkei (36 Views of Mount Fuji—although there are in fact 46 in all). Hokusai depicts a view of Tokyo Bay, with the mountain (smaller than in many other prints in the series) glimpsed through the trough of a vast wave that is about to engulf three oshiokuri (express boats) crewed by cowering oarsmen trying to deliver fish to market in nearby Edo (present-day Tokyo). The foam at the waves' white crest seems to clutch at the boats like claws, threatening to dash them to smithereens, but the distant, serene peak of Fuji—a mountain that Hokusai held in almost religious veneration—perhaps hints at a happy outcome (although we cannot be sure of it) to this elemental battle between man and nature.
The subject had evidently fascinated Hokusai (by now 70 years old) for decades, and a less well-known version published about 25 years earlier features a precursor to the later world-famous image, again with a huge wave about to break from left to right over a similar cargo boat. Significantly, that earlier print comes from a series in which each sheet is titled in cursive phonetic script, deliberately designed to resemble Dutch handwriting, while each composition emulates Western composition and perspective. By 1830 Hokusai had more fully assimilated such foreign elements into his practice and it might be argued that the stylistically and conceptually ambiguous nature of the Wave accounts for some of its early popularity in Europe. Printed (at least in early impressions)—as established by recent research—in a palette that includes both traditional indigo and exotic imported Prussian Blue, only just introduced to Japan, the Wave is indeed a synthesis of a myriad of technical, artistic, religious, and thematic threads that continue to fascinate both generalist art lovers and scholars of Japanese art and culture.
Images of the Wave began to circulate in Europe in the 1860s; three decades later, it was beginning to be singled out for praise, not just as (to Western eyes) the most admirable and collectible of the Views of Mount Fuji, but also as the greatest of all images in Japanese art. The cover of the 1905 first edition of Debussy's symphonic poem La Mer featured a faithful image of the wave (without the rest of the design) and the influence of the Wave has been pervasive ever since, as firmly rooted in the global visual imagination as Michelangelo's David, Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, and Van Gogh's Sunflowers. No other image in Asian art comes close, and Hokusai is perhaps the only Asian artist to have become truly a household name, largely on the strength of this one design.
Outstanding impressions of Kanagawa-oki nami-ura, to revert to its Japanese title, are in the collections of a host of leading museums the world over, some of them holding multiple examples. These include the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the British Museum; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Harvard University Art Museums; the Honolulu Academy of Art; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Tokyo National Museum; and the National Museum of Asian Art, Washington D.C.
