HOKUSAI KATSUSHIKA, One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji no. 95, 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 view presents, at first glance, two seemingly contradictory pictorial solutions: in the foreground, the drawing is accurate and meticulous, both in the two figures (a woodcutter on the left with an axe and a hunter on the right with a rifle), and in the huts behind them; in the background, however, the coniferous hills and Fuji are rendered with few and dense brush strokes. This very contrast reinforces the intimate and reflective character of the scene: the two men, unusually graceful for being mountaineers, converge towards the flame with which they light their pipe, the focal point of the pictorial construction. The gesture of the woodcutter offering the pipe to the hunter creates a shape reminiscent of the inverted Fuji, while the flame can be imagined as the crater of the volcano. Around them, evening descends: the silhouette of Fuji darkens, mountain mist accumulates in the valleys and slowly rises along its face, interrupting its profile as darkness softens the contours and transforms the shapes into looming masses.
The theme had already been anticipated by Hokusai in Hokusai Manga vol. XI, Senchu no shigure (1833).