Edo Period, Ukiyo-e. Hokusai Manga (Hokusai's Sketches), by Katsushika Hokusai. Authentic work.

A work by Katsushika Hokusai, dating to the late Edo period. This sheet from Ippitsu Gafu (An Album of Single-Stroke Drawings) was framed some years ago. Examples of the same work are held by the Sumida Hokusai Museum and other institutions. A first-edition, first-impression copy in the Peter Morse Collection is reportedly designated a Sumida City Registered Tangible Cultural Property in the paintings category. The present sheet is supplied in a simple wooden frame with acrylic glazing, in A4 format.

Ippitsu Gafu is a colour woodblock-printed drawing manual featuring pictures executed using the single-stroke technique, in which an image is rendered in one continuous line without lifting the brush from the paper. During a visit to Nagoya, Hokusai encountered single-stroke drawings by the local literati painter Fukuzensai, whose personal name was Niwa Kagen and who died in Tenmei 6 (1786). Believing that these works should not remain obscure, Hokusai arranged for their publication. Like Hokusai Manga (Hokusai's Sketches), the volume was published by Eirakuya Toshiro of Nagoya.

Katsushika Hokusai was born around the twenty-third day of the ninth month of Horeki 10 (31 October 1760) and died on the eighteenth day of the fourth month of Kaei 2 (10 May 1849). He was an ukiyo-e artist of the late Edo period. At nineteen, he became a pupil of Katsukawa Shunsho, the leading master of the Katsukawa school, thus beginning his artistic career. His creative activity spanned seventy years, from An'ei 8 (1779) to Kaei 2 (1849), and encompassed an extraordinary range of subjects: figures in diverse poses; courtesans, sumo wrestlers, actors and historical personages; landscapes featuring Mount Fuji, waterfalls and bridges; insects, birds, flowers, plants, architecture and Buddhist ritual implements; real and imaginary creatures, including supernatural beings, elephants, tigers and dragons; and natural phenomena such as waves, wind and rain. He published more than 34,000 works during his lifetime. His practice was equally diverse in format, extending beyond prints and surimono (privately commissioned prints) to hand-painted ukiyo-e, kibyoshi (yellow-cover illustrated fiction), yomihon (reading books), kyoka anthologies (books of comic verse), drawing manuals and shunga (erotic pictures).