HOKUSAI KATSUSHIKA, One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji no. 99, 1836-1847

Stunning proof with good contrasts, attributable to the print run of Eirakuya Tōshirō (mid 19th century) from the original woods of the Egawa workshop. Printed on Japanese paper, in excellent condition, with original untrimmed margins beyond the marginal line.

Annotated Bibliography
H.D. Smith II, Hokusai: One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji, New York: George Braziller, 1988
M. Forrer, Hokusai, London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1991
M. Forrer, Hokusai, New York: Rizzoli, 1988
M. Forrer, Hokusai: Prints and Drawings, Munich: Prestel, 1991
G.C. Calza, Hokusai: The Old Madman of Painting, Milan 1999-2000, London 2003
G.C. Calza, Hokusai: The One Hundred Views of Fuji, Milan: Editoriale Nuova, 1982
J. Hillier, The Art of Hokusai in Book Illustration, London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1980
J. Hillier, L. Smith, Japanese Prints: 300 Years of Albums and Books, London: British Museum Publications, 1980
R.S. Keyes, Ehon: The Artist and the Book in Japan, New York: George Braziller, 2006
T. Clark (ed.), Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave, London: British Museum Press, 2017
M. Forrer, W.R. van Gulik, Hokusai and His School: Paintings, Drawings and Illustrated Books, Leiden: Society for Japanese Arts and Crafts, 1991
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/78803

Commentary
The table depicts the image of Fuji inverted and projected onto the translucent paper of a shōji through a small hole, according to an optical effect comparable to the principle of the stenoscope, similar to that of a camera: a pinhole functions as a lens and returns an inverted image. The hole is likely a knot in the still-closed wooden shutters, a detail suggesting the early hours of the morning, when the rising sun intensely illuminates the mountain; the image crosses the corridor and impresses itself on the shōji.
On the left, a servant interrupts the cleaning to draw the attention of the guests, who are struck with wonder and depicted with exaggerated finger gestures in front of this unusual framing of Fuji; a figure below surprisingly recalls a pose already seen in another plate of the series, no. 44.
Similar phenomena were described in the works of the novelist Takizawa Bakin (1767-1848), who noted the extraordinary realism and even the colors of the observed images, without ever understanding the physical principle; such appearances were considered mysterious and linked to specific places. Since Hokusai illustrated numerous novels by Bakin, he may have known the phenomenon through his texts or observed it directly. However, a detail of the depiction remains enigmatic: the outline of a second Fuji in the image projected onto the shōji. Suzuki's interpretation as a distinction between "real image" (jitsuzō) and "illusion" (kyōzō) may seem overly philosophical; thus, the ambiguity remains, just as the phenomenon itself must have appeared inexplicable to Hokusai's eyes.