Christie’s Asian Art Week

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) 'Cooling off on a summer evening'

'Cooling off on a summer evening' - detail

Christie's Japanese And Korean Art Sale will take place on March 17th, in New York, and will be comprised of 174 lots, 43 of which are Japanese paintings. The highlight of this selection of works is Katsushika Hokusai's 'Cooling off on a summer evening,' a large painting (ink, colour and gold on silk) - measuring 20 13/16 x 45 3/16in (52.9 x 114.7cm) - most likely carried out as a special commission for one of the artist's most wealthy clients. Painted around 1810, when Hokusai was at the height of his powers, it depicts two young women enjoying a summer evening, seated on a bench outside a teahouse, watching a young serving girl who is busy trying to catch fish with a bamboo basket in the nearby Sumida River. The painting is expected to fetch in the region of $800,000 - $1,000,000.

A hanging scroll (ink on paper, shown above right) by Kitagawa Utamaro, depicting a young woman, seen from the rear, standing beside a small boy and looking down at him as he sits at her feet, holding a rattle above his head, is expected to fetch in the region of $30,000 - $40,000. The young woman's hair, sweeping up from her neck and piled high upon her head, reminds me of a favourite Utamaro print of mine (and a very well-known and popular design) of a young woman, shown from the rear, applying white powder to her neck while she observes her reflection in a hand mirror (shown left).

Kitagawa Utamaro (1760-1849) 'Beauty and child' - detail

Also on sale are a set of nine erotic paintings by Katsukawa Shunshô, along with a preface by the haikai poet Baba Zongi (1703-1782), written in 1780, from a sequence of twelve paintings (ink, color, silver and gold on silk, originally mounted together in a large-format handscroll). The first four paintings, which are not explicitly erotic in nature (see image below), were completed prior to the preface being written, with the remaining eight of the original series, which are explicitly erotic, being added around five or six years later, during the early 1780s. Shunshô's paintings rank amongst the most significant of all paintings produced in Japan, regardless of school or period, and this set have an estimated value of $500,000 - $700,000.

Katsukawa Shunsho (d. 1792) One of nine erotic scenes from 'Secret Games in the Spring Palace'

(All images courtesy of Christie's, except the woodblock print of the woman powdering her neck)