Hokusai’s South Wind, Clear Dawn, a 10¼ x 15in (26 x 38cm) colour woodblock print, c.1831-33, from the 36 views of Mount Fuji series. The mountain was venerated as a female deity and members were encouraged to ascend its slopes and enter its caves to engage in religious austerities, so that when they exited, they would be spiritually reborn and purified. The print is priced in the ‘mid-six figures’ at Sebastian Izzard LLC.
Concentrating on the last 60 years of the Edo period between 1800-60, the show includes painted and printed maps, landscapes and studies of the natural world.
A panoramic view of Edo by the samurai artist Kuwagata Keisai (1764-1824) sets the scene followed by a selection of maps, landscapes, and illustrations of poetry by Hokusai (1760-1849), including his woodblock print of Mount Fuji South Wind, Clear Dawn.
There are also paintings by Hokusai’s followers Maki Bokusen (1775-1824), and Teisai Hokuba (1771-1844), and landscapes by his rival Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), including first editions of his famous snowscape Evening Snow at Kanbara and moonlit scene Seba. Hiroshige’s bird and flower prints also feature with Geese in Flight Under the Harvest Moon among the stand-out works.
