# Miyako Shell

**Katsushika Hokusai** (Japanese, 1760–1849)  
probably 1821  
Woodblock print (surimono); ink and color on paper  
7 7/8 x 7 in. (20 x 17.8 cm)

Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, JP2579. [The museum's record](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/54195).

## About this work

Katsushika Hokusai designed this (probably 1821), aged 61. It is now at The Met in New York.

### How it was made

- **Surimono.** Privately commissioned Japanese prints, often New Year greetings, made in small runs on thick paper with metallic pigments and blind embossing, and usually paired with poems.
- **Colour woodblock print.** In Japan these were a team effort. The artist drew the design, a carver cut it into cherry-wood blocks, one block for each colour, and a printer brushed on the pigment and rubbed each sheet by hand. Full-colour prints of this kind were called nishiki-e, “brocade pictures”, from the 1760s on.

### [Katsushika Hokusai](https://www.ochreeditions.com/artists/katsushika-hokusai)

Japanese, 1760–1849

Hokusai trained in the studio of the actor-portraitist Katsukawa Shunshō and went on to work under more than thirty names across a career of some seventy years. Alongside book illustration, paintings and the sketch volumes known as Hokusai Manga, he made landscape a leading subject of ukiyo-e with Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, issued around 1830–33, in which the mountain appears from city, coast and countryside, often in the newly imported Prussian blue.

_Written by Ochre Editions._

## Facts

- Type: Prints
- Culture: Japan
- The artist was 61
- Real size: about 8 × 7 in (20 × 18 cm). The original is small: even the 8 × 10 in print shows it larger than life.
- Century: 19th century
- Movement: [Ukiyo-e](https://www.ochreeditions.com/movements/ukiyo-e)
- Subjects: Men, Rivers, Boats
- Colour: brown
- Rights: public domain (CC0 1.0); free to use for any purpose.

## Get it

- Free download, full resolution: https://img.ochreeditions.com/m/929.jpg?dl=1
- Image: https://img.ochreeditions.com/a/929/1920.jpg
- Giclée reproduction on Hahnemühle Photo Rag: 8 × 10 in $28; 11 × 14 in $38; 12 × 16 in $42; 16 × 20 in $56; 18 × 24 in $68; 20 × 30 in $86; 24 × 36 in $108
- Framed reproduction: 8 × 10 in $78; 11 × 14 in $98; 12 × 16 in $108; 16 × 20 in $138; 18 × 24 in $164; 20 × 30 in $208; 24 × 36 in $258
- Canvas reproduction: 8 × 10 in $58; 11 × 14 in $72; 12 × 16 in $79; 16 × 20 in $98; 18 × 24 in $118; 20 × 30 in $148
- Print-ready file: 8 × 10 in $2; 11 × 14 in $2; 12 × 16 in $3; 16 × 20 in $3; 18 × 24 in $3; 20 × 30 in $5; 24 × 36 in $5

Sizes stop where the museum's file would print below 150 pixels per inch. Everything sold is a reproduction, made to order. [Order a print](https://www.ochreeditions.com/art/miyako-shell-met-54195).