HOKUSAI KATSUSHIKA, One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji no. 44, 1835

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 origin of the kakemono, the painting on a vertically unfolding scroll.
In a tavern, a servant has removed the paper shoji to clean the window and points out the view of Mount Fuji to a visitor, who is enchanted by the sight. To the total surprise, not so much of the view of Fuji, but of the framing created between the mountain and the surrounding elements that encircle it like a tapestry, the visitor opens his hands in ecstasy, dropping his pipe and tobacco jar. The scene recalls that of the drawing Toryu no Fuji, plate no. 36 of the same series, in which the dragon, emerging from the thick of the clouds, suddenly finds itself before Fuji and is enchanted, with its claws open.
The meaning of wonder is enhanced by the Chinese poetry on the wall in the upper right, engraved in archaic seal characters. It means something like "The flowers bloom and fall right before my eyes, the clouds come and go above the mountain's peak." Probably Hokusai intends to suggest another problem of image rendering: how to represent reality as if it is truly before our eyes, how to capture change and movement on an unchanging surface, like the one on which one draws? He himself certainly succeeded in doing so by showing here the dramatic reaction of the man confronted with the framed vision.