# Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji > Katsushika Hokusai - 1830/33; the museum gives a range of 1826 to 1836 for the series > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/katsushika-hokusai/hokusai-under-the-wave-off-kanagawa-buckingham/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-23 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Katsushika Hokusai - **Date:** 1830/33; the museum gives a range of 1826 to 1836 for the series - **Medium:** Colour woodblock print, oban format - **Dimensions:** 25.4 x 37.6 cm - **Object type:** Print - **Period:** Japanese, Edo period, nineteenth century - **Current location:** Art Institute of Chicago - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary There is no such object as The Great Wave. There is a design cut into blocks about 1830, perhaps eight thousand impressions pulled from them, and the surviving sheets, each with its own printing, condition and owners. This record describes one sheet: the Art Institute of Chicago's 1925.3245, bought from Yamanaka and Company by Clarence Buckingham in December 1905.The British Museum scientist Capucine Korenberg located 111 impressions worldwide, reduced Roger Keyes's twenty-one states to eight, and placed this sheet in state 4. The Art Institute holds three impressions, in states 4, 6 and 7, and credits all three to the Clarence Buckingham Collection although Buckingham owned only one of them. Korenberg uses the museum's 1952 sheet as her published illustration of a late printing.The Christie's New York price of USD 2,760,000, set on 21 March 2023, held the auction record for this design until 22 November 2025, when Sotheby's Hong Kong sold a third impression, dispersed from the Okada Museum of Art, for a reported HKD 21,720,000, about USD 2,800,000, now the standing record. Both are premium-inclusive totals for sheets other than this one; a hammer of USD 2,250,000 can be derived for the Christie's sale on an unverified schedule and is given here as DERIVED, and no equivalent derivation is offered for the Hong Kong sale. Neither price belongs to the Chicago sheet, and neither is evidence of what this one is worth. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **c. 1830-1905** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) Nothing is recorded of this sheet between its printing and its appearance with Yamanaka and Company in New York. That is normal for a commercial print rather than a defect in the research: impressions were sold cheaply and in quantity in Edo, and were not the kind of object whose owners were written down. - **unknown-1905** Yamanaka and Company, New York `[documented]` (dealer stock) The first named holder in the museum's chain. Yamanaka was the leading dealer in Asian art in the United States in this period; between 1917 and 1944 its New York gallery occupied two floors at 680 Fifth Avenue with ten viewing rooms and a lecture hall, and the firm also had galleries in Beijing, Shanghai, London and Paris. On 8 July 1942 the Office of Alien Property Custodian used the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 to seize the three branches still trading in the United States, at Boston, Chicago and New York, notified at 7 Fed. Reg. 5207 of 9 July 1942. A sale brochure of 1,683 objects followed in 1943, and in 1944 the Custodian engaged Parke-Bernet Galleries in New York to auction the remaining stock in three parts, with the art library sold separately on 6 and 7 June in 1,037 lots. All of that postdates this sale by thirty-six years and does not affect this sheet's title. It is recorded because a reader tracing any Yamanaka provenance needs to know where the firm's American records go. - **1905-1913** Clarence Buckingham (1854-1913), Chicago `[documented]` (purchase) Bought from Yamanaka and Company in December 1905, in a transaction that also brought in at least one other sheet from the same series. Buckingham assembled one of the largest collections of Japanese prints outside Japan. - **1913-1925** Lucy Maud Buckingham (1870-1920) and Kate Sturges Buckingham (1858-1937), Chicago `[documented]` (inheritance) Passed by descent to Clarence Buckingham's two sisters on his death in 1913. Lucy Maud Buckingham died in 1920; Kate Sturges Buckingham held the collection until the gift. - **1925-present** Art Institute of Chicago `[documented]` (gift) Given by Kate Sturges Buckingham in 1925, accessioned 1925.3245 and credited to the Clarence Buckingham Collection. She went on buying for the collection after the gift: she bought a second impression of this design from Alexander G. Mosle on 31 May 1928 and gave it to the museum the same year. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **** , - This sheet has never been offered at auction. It went from a dealer to a private collector in 1905, by descent within one family, and into a museum in 1925. There is no hammer and no premium for it. The two prices that ever existed are private invoices that have not been published: the December 1905 purchase from Yamanaka and Company, and the 31 May 1928 purchase of the museum's SECOND impression from Alexander G. Mosle. The row below is for a DIFFERENT sheet and is recorded so that its figures are never attached to this one. - **2023-03-21** Christie's, New York, Japanese and Korean Art, sale 21618 (sale id 29870), Rockefeller Center, 21 March 2023. NOT THIS SHEET., lot 122 - Estimate: USD 500,000 - 700,000 - Hammer: USD 2,250,000 DERIVED, not published. The schedule is now read, not assumed: the lot page links Conditions of Sale 'conditionsofsale-newyork-02sep22', which the house has since removed (404 at rung 1, 2026-09-15); the Internet Archive capture of 11 February 2024 of that document reads 26 per cent of hammer up to and including USD 1,000,000, 20 per cent of the part over 1,000,000 up to 6,000,000, 14.5 per cent above. 1,260,000 + 1.2 x 1,250,000 = 2,760,000; hammer 2,250,000, a round bidding figure. Label stays DERIVED; the schedule is no longer UNVERIFIED. - With premium: USD 2,760,000 premium-inclusive, as printed on the house lot page ('Price realised USD 2,760,000') and carried in the sale's lot-search JSON (price_realised 2760000). - Lot page read 2026-09-15 at rung 1, HTTP 200, in full; lot-search JSON read the same day; the two agree. Catalogued as: woodblock print from Fugaku sanjurokkei, signed Hokusai aratame Iitsu hitsu, published by Nishimuraya Yohachi (Eijudo), horizontal oban 25.1 x 37.1 cm. Provenance as printed: 'Acquired by the family of the current owner in the early 1900s; thence by descent'. Exhibited and published: Ukiyo-e: japanske farvetraesnit, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, 2 June-31 August 1993, cat. 8. The house essay ranks it 'among the twenty or so best impressions surviving today' and notes the pink cloud and the unbroken title cartouche. Sale-level from the lot search: 187 lots listed; lot 19 (attributed Hokusai, Hawk Hunting), lot 89 and lot 117 among those with no price, i.e. unsold. The record's earlier corroboration via the moon jar in the same sale (4,560,000 resolving to 3,750,000 on the same schedule) stands. ## Literature - 1975, Ukiyo-e Taikei, Tokyo, vol. 8, 29; XIII, I. - 1988, Matthi Forrer, Hokusai, Royal Academy of Arts, London, p. 264. - 1989, Richard Lane, Hokusai: Life and Work, London, pp. 189, 192. - 1995, Jim Ulak, Japanese Prints, Art Institute of Chicago, p. 268. - 2003, James N. Wood, The Art Institute of Chicago: The Essential Guide, rev. ed., p. 86. - 2009, James Cuno, The Art Institute of Chicago: The Essential Guide, rev. ed., p. 100. ## Open questions - Christie's lot number for the record impression sold on 21 March 2023 was not recovered; the house serves it through scripting that no available transport executes. - Christie's own conditions of sale for March 2023 were not read, so the premium schedule behind the derived hammer of USD 2,250,000 is inferred from arithmetic rather than from the house's published terms. - How many impressions survive, as against how many have been located? Korenberg located 111; a November 2025 report on the Okada Museum sale put known survivors at about 130, and other press estimates run to 200 and upwards; the figures measure different, imprecisely defined populations. - Who cut the blocks and who printed this sheet? The cutter and printer are unrecorded, although the differences between states are their work. - What did Clarence Buckingham pay Yamanaka and Company in December 1905, and what did Kate Sturges Buckingham pay Alexander G. Mosle in 1928? Neither figure has been published. - Where was this sheet between about 1830 and 1905, and how did it reach Yamanaka and Company in New York? - Why do all three impressions carry the Clarence Buckingham credit line when he owned only one of them? The convention is a museum accounting practice and it obstructs provenance reading. - How large was the 1925 gift? Published figures of about 1,400 and about 2,500 sheets both circulate and were not reconciled here. - Which of the Art Institute's three Great Wave impressions, 1925.3245 (this sheet), 1928.1086, or 1952.343, was the one shown to the public from 5 September 2024 to 6 January 2025? Press coverage of that rotation did not name the accession, and the museum's own artwork pages returned a Cloudflare bot-challenge rather than content when checked directly on 2026-08-23; not resolved here. ## Sources - [1] Art Institute of Chicago, collection record 1925.3245, Under the Wave off Kanagawa. Tombstone, dimensions, signature and publisher's mark, the museum's description of the series and of the Berlin blue, its statement that all three of its impressions are later than the first state, the full provenance line and the publication history. - [2] Art Institute of Chicago, collection record 1952.343, a second impression of the same design. Provenance: Frederick Standish Colburn (1878-1957), Evanston, Illinois; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1952. - [3] Art Institute of Chicago, collection record 1928.1086, a third impression of the same design. Provenance: Alexander G. Mosle (1863-1945), Germany; sold to Kate Sturges Buckingham (1858-1937), Chicago, 31 May 1928; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1928. - [4] Art Institute of Chicago, collection record 1925.3244, Shower Below the Summit (Sanka hakuu), from the same series and the same December 1905 purchase from Yamanaka and Company. - [5] Capucine Korenberg, 'The making and evolution of Hokusai's Great Wave', British Museum. The census of 111 impressions, the reduction of Roger Keyes's twenty-one states to eight, the identification of this accession as a state 4 impression, the use of Art Institute 1952.343 as the exemplar of a late printing, the fading figures and the tests separating originals from modern reproductions. Read directly from the PDF. - [6] Antiques and The Arts Weekly, 'Christie's Asia Week New York Sales Total $66.9 Million'. Confirms the 21 March 2023 sale of Japanese and Korean art, its total of USD 11,413,992 at 253 per cent hammer above low estimate, bidders from twenty-two countries, the Great Wave record of USD 2,760,000 and the moon jar at USD 4,560,000. - [7] Antiques and The Arts Weekly, 'Christie's Amends Buyer's Premium Thresholds', 7 September 2016, giving the New York schedule of 25 per cent to USD 150,000, 20 per cent to 3,000,000 and 12 per cent above, effective 19 September 2016. Cited as the only Christie's schedule this record verified directly, and as the schedule the March 2023 arithmetic EXCLUDES. It is not the schedule used in the derivation. - [8] Najiba H. Choudhury, 'Seizures and Liquidation Sales in the United States during World War II: Tracking the Fate of Japanese Art Dealership, Yamanaka and Company, Inc.', Journal for Art Market Studies 2 (2020). The 8 July 1942 seizure of the Boston, Chicago and New York branches under the Trading with the Enemy Act, 7 Fed. Reg. 5207 of 9 July 1942, the 1,683-object brochure of 1943, the 1944 Parke-Bernet liquidation and the 680 Fifth Avenue premises. Read from the PDF. - [9] CBS News Chicago, 'The Great Wave returns to display for a few months at the Art Institute of Chicago'. Confirms the 5 September 2024 to 6 January 2025 display of a Great Wave impression from the Buckingham holdings, the museum's stated four-year rotation and the light-sensitivity rationale. Does not name the specific accession shown. Read directly. - [10] Hypebeast, 'Katsushika Hokusai's The Great Wave Smashes Record, Selling for $2.8 Million USD at Sotheby's Hong Kong', November 2025. Confirms the 22 November 2025 sale in Masterpieces of Asian Art from the Okada Museum of Art, the HKD 21.7 million / USD 2.8 million price realized, the white-glove result and the HKD 688 million / USD 88 million sale total. Read directly. - [11] Christie's, 'Lot 122, Katsushika Hokusai, Kanagawa oki nami ura (Under the well of the Great Wave off Kanagawa) - Japanese and Korean Art, sale 21618, 21 March 2023'. Sale, lot, estimate, premium-inclusive price USD 2,760,000, the printed provenance and the 1993 Copenhagen exhibition. Accessed 2026-09-15. - [12] christies.com, web page cited for the Christie's, New York sale of 2023-03-21. - [13] Christie's, via web.archive.org, 'Conditions of Sale, New York, 2 September 2022 (Internet Archive capture of 11 February 2024; the live URL now 404s)'. The 26 / 20 / 14.5 per cent buyer's premium schedule in force for the March 2023 sale, behind the DERIVED hammer of USD 2,250,000. Accessed 2026-09-15. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.