“The Great Wave off Kanagawa” will be featured on the back of Japan’s new 1,000 yen bill to be issued from 2024

The new design for the 1,000 yen bill that will be used from 2024 is the first to feature “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” from the “Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji” series of woodblock prints drawn by Katsushika Hokusai, a famous ukiyo-e artist from the Edo period. This work, which is well known as Hokusai’s masterpiece, depicts a large wave appearing off the coast of Kanagawa, which is now Tokyo Bay, and Mt. Fuji rising quietly in the background. On the front is a portrait of  Kitasato Shibasaburo, the “father of modern Japanese medicine,” who developed serum therapy and discovered the plague bacterium.