Katsushika Hokusai's Birds, Album of Sketches - Katsushika Hokusai (19th century)

Katsushika Hokusai

Ink and color on paper

Metropolitan Museum of Art

This work is a leaf from the celebrated Album of Sketches by Katsushika Hokusai and His Disciples, a bound album of ninety-seven leaves executed in ink and color on paper during the nineteenth century in Edo-period Japan. The album contains studies of birds and other subjects rendered with the fluid, observational precision that characterizes Hokusai's graphic practice, reflecting his lifelong engagement with the natural world and his role as a master teacher to a circle of disciples. Hokusai (1760–1849) was one of the preeminent figures of the ukiyo-e tradition—a painter, printmaker, draftsman, and book illustrator whose prolific output encompassed landscapes, nature studies, and illustrated fiction. The album, now held in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, represents an intimate dimension of his studio practice: working sketches that bridge preparatory study and finished artistic expression.