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Comment by JoeAltmaier | Hacker News Reader

I would perhaps suggest "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" is the most faked? It was created in 1831 I think. There are no extant prints of the original in existence. Just copies and copies of copies, uncounted 'fakes' everywhere.

And like a colossal game of telephone over the centuries, changes crept in until there are quite a few distinct prints purporting to be the most original.

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The Great Wave Off Kangawa was a mass-produced work from the start, though; of the several thousand copies that Hokusai originally printed, about a hundred still exist in museums and private collections.

But there's no true "original" since it was always a series of wood block prints.

> But there's no true "original" since it was always a series of wood block prints.

This isn't quite correct. There was an original painting on a special Japanese paper called "gampi". That original artwork is glued to the first wood block, so it gets destroyed in the process of carving.

Early forms of the art stopped there and produced simple monochrome images. Later developments included hand painting certain sections of the image, and eventually the use of multiple blocks for multiple colors, often with gradients and even embossing and texturing.

Wikipedia says about 100 extant prints of the original survive, of approx. 9000 total that were made?

Huh. That famous British antique show expert claimed no originals existed. Serves me right for believe what I heard on TV!

Here's a wonderful discussion by an investigator specializing in the print: https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/great-wave-spot-differenc...

Thanks for sharing. This is a well-written and well-presented account of how mass-produced woodprint paintings show noticeable change between early- and later-printings.

That's a really great article that brings some solid facts to the question. That guy did his research.

They kept running editions off the original wood plates but the plates slowly wear and because of that colors changed from edition to edition. My father bought a 3rd edition print in the 60's when he was in the navy stationed in Japan. It's a bit muted, especially in the sky compared to the first runs I have seen in museums.

> a colossal game of telephone over the centuries,

Sounds like it is a Great Wave in more than one sense. The medium is the message. :)

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