Hokusai’s works Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji will be put up for auction

Christie’s, a major London auction house, announced on September 29th that all 46 works in the series “Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji” by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), an ukiyo-e artist from the late Edo period, will be auctioned as a set next March. It is rare for the pieces to be put up for sale all at once, and a Christie’s official said, “The winning bid is likely to be in the millions of dollars.”

Katsushika Hokusai’s “Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji”, which he published after he turned 70, became popular, and 46 works, including 10 additional works, became his masterpiece. It is said that he made landscape paintings one of the main genres of ukiyo-e prints, along with yakusha-e (actor portrait) and bijin-ga (beauty portrait).

Among the series, “The Great Wave off Kanagawa“, “Fine Wind, Clear Morning (Red Fuji)“, and “Rainstorm beneath the Summit”  is particularly famous.