Billionaire’s spat sparks Sotheby’s sale of Hokusai and Utamaro works at record-breaking prices
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Katsushika Hokusai’s iconic The Great Wave Off The Coast Of Kanagawa was sold for a record-breaking HK$21.7 million on Nov 22.
PHOTO: SOTHEBY'S
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A billionaire’s spat has led indirectly to record-breaking prices for two works by Japanese masters of ukiyo-e.
The world’s most famous woodblock print, Katsushika Hokusai’s iconic The Great Wave Off The Coast Of Kanagawa (1830 to 1832), fetched HK$21.7 million (S$3.62 million) at Sotheby’s Masterpieces Of Asian Art From The Okada Museum Of Art auction in Hong Kong on Nov 22.
A Japanese collector paid almost triple the high estimate for the work, part of Hokusai’s prized Thirty-Six Views Of Mount Fuji series. More than 20 bids were placed during a feverish eight-minute battle for the work.
Similarly, Kitagawa Utamaro’s large-scale Fukagawa In Snow painting – part of a famous Snow, Moon And Flowers trilogy – sold to another Japanese collector for a record-breaking HK$55.27 million.
The works were part of 125 major pieces from Japan’s famed Okada museum. The auction achieved white glove status – all the works were sold – for a total of HK$688 million.
Sotheby’s Asia chairman and worldwide head of Asian art Nicolas Chow told American art publication ARTnews before the sale that “it is the most significant collection of East Asian art to come to auction in recent memory”.
Other highlights from the sale included Ya Yi fanglei, a ritual bronze vessel from one of the Shang Dynasty’s most prominent clans, a bajixiang vase from the Qianlong period and a celadon-glazed lotus-mouth bottle vase from the Yongzheng period.
The sale was prompted by American law firm Bartlit Beck, which billed the museum’s Japanese billionaire owner Kazuo Okada a staggering US$50 million (S$64.8 million) following a court case.
Mr Okada, 83, the former chairman of Universal Entertainment Corporation, co-founded Wynn Resorts with 83-year-old American casino mogul Steve Wynn in 2002. The two fell out and Mr Okada was ousted in 2012 as Wynn Resorts’ vice-chairman.
Wynn Resorts bought Universal Entertainment Corporation’s 20 per cent stake in the business at a discount and Mr Okada disputed the price in court.
He won an out-of-court settlement for US$2.6 billion, but refused to pay the legal fees. Bartlit Beck pursued the matter and won a binding court arbitration, so Mr Okada has to pay.
