JAPANESE AND KOREAN ART 23 march 2022

(reverse)
527
KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760-1849)
Mount Fuji in a Thunderstorm
Edo period (1615-1868), circa 1831
An oban yoko-e print entitled Sanka haku-u (White Rain Below the
Mountain), from the series Fugaku sanjurokkei (36 Views of Mount Fuji),
depicting the mountain, its peak and steep upper slopes capped with
snow, rising majestically above billowing thunderclouds, with stylized
forks of lightning at lower right, signed Hokusai aratame Iitsu hitsu
10 x 14 1/2in (25.4 x 36.8cm)
$200,000 - 300,000
Published by Nishimuraya Yohachi (Eijudo) and titled in Japanese
Sanka haku-u or White Rain Below the Mountain, this world-famous
depiction of Japan’s tallest mountain has acquired a wide range of
non-Japanese titles since it first came to global notice around 150
years ago: Douche en dessous du sommet, Sudden Shower beneath
the Summit, Rainstorm beneath the Summit, Mount Fuji above the
Lightning or even the Black Fuji, testament indeed to its enduring
popularity among European and American lovers of Japanese art.
Along with two other prints from the same series of views of Mount
Fuji, known outside Japan as the Great Wave and the Red Fuji, it is not
just one of Hokusai’s best-known prints but one of the most familiar
images in the whole of East Asian art or even world art.
Occupying a larger proportion of the pictorial space than it does
in any other Hokusai view of Fuji, the mountain is seen from the
west, late on a summer afternoon, when “white rain,” a sudden
thunderstorm bursting from a previously clear sky, drenches its lower
slopes, dark thunderclouds at right contrasting with sunlit clouds at
left and a red bolt of lightning below.
The present lot exhibits several features associated with earlier
impressions of Sanka haku-u, among them the darker clouds at
right and the bokashi (partially wiped) graduated bands of the sky
above Fuji. Outstanding examples are preserved in several of the
world’s finest collections of Japanese art, including the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston (four impressions: 06.1139, 11.25222, 21.6757,
21.6758); the British Museum (two impressions: 1906,1220,0.526,
1937,0710,0.120); the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
(JP11); Harvard University Art Museums (1933.4.2700); the Honolulu
Academy of Arts; and the Art Institute of Chicago; for the last two
see Tokyo National Museum, Hokusai, exhibition catalogue, October
25-December 4, 2005, cat. nos. 288 and 289.
12 | BONHAMS