Kicking off Christie’s Asian Art Week in New York, a complete set of Katsushika Hokusai’s “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” achieved a landmark price of $3,559,000, setting a new auction record for the artist. This sale underscored the sustained demand for Hokusai’s work: Last year, a single print of The Great Wave off Kanagawa sold at Christie’s for $2.76 million, setting the artist’s previous auction record.
The complete set was amassed over a period of 11 years by collector Jitendra V. Singh, a former professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “It is a once-in-a-generation honor to offer a complete set of Hokusai’s monumental Fuji series,” said Takaaki Murakami, head of Christie’s Japanese and Korean art department. “The record-setting result we achieved for the Thirty-Six Views and the strong prices for other important Hokusai prints continue our proud tradition of being the leading auction house for this artist.”
The auction, which featured an array of Japanese and Korean artworks, totaled $6,662,254, reaching 112% of its low estimate and 81% by lot. Among other notable sales was Hokusai’s Under the Well of the Great Wave of Kanagawa, which hammered $693,000. Other sales included Lee Ufan’s Untitled 1985 (1985), which doubled its low estimate at $138,000, and Utagawa Hiroshige’s Yellow rose (Yamabuki) and frogs (ca. 1832), which achieved more than 16 times its low estimate at $32,760.
Additionally, a number of Morita Shiryu works hammered significantly above their high estimates. Dragon (1996) fetched $100,800, well above its high estimate of $60,000, and Yaku (To Burn): Complete Combustion of All Fetters (1956), with a high estimate of $7,000, brought in $40,320.
Correction: A previous version of this article described Jitendra V. Singh as a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is retired.
