On 8th July, Dreweatts Auctioneers will present Japanese Prints: Art of the Woodblock, a sale of masterpieces by the ukiyo-e virtuosos of the Edo period. Ukiyo-e, meaning ‘pictures of the floating world’, is a genre that saw artists depict female beauties, sumo wrestlers, folk tale scenes, landscapes, erotica, and flora/fauna by means of ten or more woodblocks, which were inked and pressed onto handmade paper. The genre was central to forming the West’s perception of Japanese art in the late 19th century, and from the 1870s onward became a strong influence on the likes of Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, and Vincent van Gogh.
Highlights from the Dreweatts sale include editions of:
· Hiroshige’s Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake (Ohashi Atake no yudachi), which inspired Van Gogh’s painting Bridge in the Rain (his personal impression of this Hiroshige work is in the collection of the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam).

· Hiroshige’s Plum Estate, Kameido (Kameido umeyashiki), a particularly novel print for its cropped composition and unusual vantage point, which enhances the depth of the picture.
· Hokusai’s visual rendering of a poem by Suguwara no Michizane (802-853), “On this journey / I have no streamers to offer up. / Instead, dear gods, if it pleases you, / may you take this maple brocade / of Mount Tamuke’s colours”.
· Hokusai’s celebrated print Under the Great Wave of Kanagawa (Kanagawa-oki Nami Ura); this particular edition was owned by Thomas Sturge Moore, a poet and playwright known for his association with W.B. Yeats.

“Under the Wave off Kanagawa (The Great Wave)” – Arguably the most famous Japanese print in the world, this image of a towering wave and Mount Fuji is an iconic masterpiece of ukiyo-e that transcends time and culture. From his celebrated series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, this dynamic woodblock print captures the raw power of nature, a towering, claw-like wave frozen in motion, dwarfing fishing boats beneath its curl while the distant Mount Fuji stands serene in the background. More than just a stunning seascape, The Great Wave symbolizes the delicate balance between human struggle and the sublime force of the natural world. Its bold composition and vivid indigo hues have influenced artists from Van Gogh to contemporary designers, making it not just a cornerstone of Japanese art, but a global cultural treasure.
www.dreweatts.com
See also: Hanneke Beaumont: Sculpting the Universal Self
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