HOKUSAI KATSUSHIKA, One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji no. 82, 1836-1847

Beautiful 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
In traditional Japanese villages, territorial boundaries were often marked by Shinto temples or simple ritual markers, serving to protect and favor the local Kami deities. Such signs represented both a delimitation and defined a symbolic and protected space. In Shintoism, there are no idols or anthropomorphic images of the deities: the Kami are evoked through goshintai or mitamashiro, natural objects or artifacts, such as mirrors, stones, and swords, or through ritual elements like the one represented, the gohei (strips of paper folded with the value of a votive offering, fixed to a cord stretched between two branches or poles), bells, and floral compositions, which serve as a bridge between the human and divine worlds.
It is possible that Hokusai observed this kind of element during his travels across Japan, but it cannot be ruled out that he creatively reworked its form, perhaps to achieve an evocative silhouette or a visual reference to the profile of Mount Fuji, suggested by the line of the cord. Below these sacred signs moves a varied and everyday humanity, the kind that naturally encountered along the roads and in the passages between one village and another, seamlessly integrated into the ritual and natural landscape.