KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760-1849)

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VA… Read more

A GROUP OF HOKUSAI PRINTS FROM THE NINETEENTH CENTURY COLLECTION OF VERNON WETHERED Vernon Wethered was born in Bristol in 1865. After Clifton College and Oxford he was articled to a firm of lawyers, but he later suddenly decided to abandon the law for art. George Clausen, advised him to study at the Slade School in Gower Street, where he spent two years. In 1896 he married Mary Dingwall, and they lived at first in Sussex and later in London. He became a member of the New English Art Club and also of the Burlington Fine Art Club. He exhibited his own paintings at the New English Art Club and also at the Grosvenor Gallery and the Redfern Gallery in the 1920s. His wife's brother, Kenneth Dingwall, was a noted collector of ceramics, and he and Vernon Wethered were among the founder members of the Oriental Ceramic Society. He probably acquired the Japanese prints at various times during the late years of the nineteenth or the early years of the twentieth century. It is unlikely that he set out to make a methodical collection (in this way he differed from his brother-in-law Kenneth Dingwall), but, with his interest in landscape painting and in oriental art, it is easy to see why they appealed to him. It is possible that this interest was shared by his friends in the art world because a small print by Gakutei was given to him by Clausen at Christmas. After his death in 1952, his collection of prints (among other drawings and pictures) passed to his two daughters and to his son, Vernon Dingwall Wethered, and later to younger members of the family. THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

Details

KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760-1849)
Sanka hakuu [Thunderstorm beneath the summit] from the series Fugaku sanjurokkei [Thirty-six views of Mount Fuji], dramatic lightning flashes in zigzag patterns below the majestic serenity of Mount Fuji, blue outline, signed Hokusai aratame iitsu hitsu, very good impression and colour, repaired wormholes, slight centre-fold
Oban yoko-e: 10 7/16 x 14 3/8in. (26.5 x 36.6cm.)

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

Along with The Great Wave and Red Fuji, this design has always been considered as one of the three great masterpieces from this famous series. Other impressions are illustrated in Matthi Forrer, The Baur Collection: Japanese Prints (Geneva, 1994), no. G189 and in Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Hokusai and Hiroshige: Great Japanese Prints from the James A. Michener Collection (Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1998), p. 57.

More from JAPANESE ART AND DESIGN

View All