The Great Wave off Kanagawa

Hokusai’s celebrated woodblock print captures a dramatic moment at sea: three boats battle a towering wave while Mount Fuji rises calmly in the distance. Created in late 1831, it is the opening image in Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji and one of the most reproduced works in art history.

Several museum copies came from 19th-century private collections; the Metropolitan Museum of Art copy came from Henry Osborne Havemeyer’s collection, donated by his wife in 1929.