Works of Japanese painter and printmaker Katsushika Hokusai have remained secretive over his seven-decade career. Among them is a group of 103 small drawings the artist produced for an unpublished encyclopedia titled Banmotsu ehon daizen zu (The Great Picture Book of Everything), to be shown at the British Museum in an eponymous exhibition opening this September.
The postcard-sized works are known as hanshita-e, a term for the final drawings used to carve the key blocks in Japanese woodblock printing, typically destroyed as part of the process. These intricately designed illustrations have remained intact, mounted on cards and stored in a custom-made wooden box. Close to 200 years since their creation, the public will now enjoy the designs not simply as preparatory drawings, but as works of art in their own right.
