JAKARTA - One of the most iconic images in art history, "The Great Wave off Kanagawa," was successfully sold for $2.76 million at Christie's auction in New York, United States last week.
The 14.6-inch-wide artwork is now the most expensive work of Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai ever auctioned, the auction house said.
Created in the early 1830s, the "Great Wave" depicts three fishing boats fighting the raging oceans in what is now known as Chiba Prefecture, Japan.
This painting is part of a genre known as "Ukiyo-e", where artists mass-produced works on paper using woodblock prints.
Experts are not sure how many copies of the "Great Wave" were originally produced, although there may have been several thousand of them. However, the print is not always as searched for today, and only a small part is expected to still exist.
The author of the blog for the British Museum, which has three original copies of the "Great Wave," researcher Capucine Korenberg wrote in 2020, the printers "will continue to print until the logs are completely exhausted," adding that this could mean there are about 8,000 prints that have been made.
However, Korenberg said he could only find photographic evidence of 111 different versions, as reported by CNN March 24.
Korenberg added that the price of the "Great Wave" was not expensive at the time, and the price may have been the same as "about two servings of noodles in the middle of the 19th century."
As part of Hokusai's "Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji" series, the "Great Wave" is now one of the most reproduced images in the world, appearing on posters, hugs, shirts and refrigerator magnets.
Another copy auctioned by Christie's in recent years has a price range from several hundred thousand dollars to more than 1.5 million US dollars.
One of those sold on Tuesday is described in the auction house catalog as a "well-maintained initial print", which is ranked "undeniably among the best 20 or more prints that still exist today," although Christie's has initial bid estimates of between $ 500,000 and $ 700,000.
Registered with the full name "Kanagawa oki nami ura (Under the Big Wave Well in Kanagawa)," this item was obtained by the previous owner's family in the early 1900s and was exhibited at the Glyptotek art museum in Copenhagen.
This sales record is part of a major auction of Japanese and Korean art followed by nearly 200 works of art and antiques with a total value of 11.4 million US dollars.
It is known, "Great Wave" is one of more than 10 works attributed to the Hokusai that appeared in the sale. Among these works, there are also prints depicting a mill and snowy landscape, both from the "Thirtens and Six Views of Mount Fuji" series, which sold for 37,800 US dollars each and more than 30,000 US dollars.
However, the biggest sales on the day were achieved by a "month holder" from the 18th century Korea, a white rotary vessel made by uniting two half-spheres - sold for more than USD 4.5 million.
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