Hiroshige Auction: Explore Alan Medaugh’s Rare Collection
By Darren Smith, Arts Reporter
August 28, 2026
Christie’s will offer one of the largest and most distinguished private collections of woodblock prints by Utagawa Hiroshige when it presents the first installment of Hiroshige: Colors of the Four Seasons, the Alan Medaugh Collection at its Rockefeller Center galleries in New York on September 15. The American businessman Alan Medaugh spent more than fifty years assembling more than 600 sheets by the Edo-period master, concentrating on the earliest impressions with the richest color and finest state of preservation. The opening sale alone comprises more than 180 works spanning Hiroshige’s career, with two further auctions planned to follow.
Hiroshige (1797–1858) remains one of the towering figures of Japanese printmaking, celebrated for his atmospheric landscapes, sudden weather effects, and intimate views of Edo and the Tōkaidō road. While Katsushika Hokusai’s Great Wave has long dominated popular conversation about ukiyo-e, specialists have noted growing collector interest in Hiroshige’s more lyrical and coloristically inventive sheets. Medaugh’s holdings, built with unusual discipline, are now regarded as among the finest ever formed in private hands. He sought deluxe early printings whenever possible, including the extra-color impressions from the celebrated One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. Those impressions retain a vibrancy that later pulls from the same blocks rarely match.
Among the highlights is a superb example of Ohashi Atake no yudachi (Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and Atake), estimated at $50,000–$100,000. The 1857 print, with its slanting rain, huddled figures, and distant boats on the Sumida River, is among Hiroshige’s most iconic images. Vincent van Gogh owned an impression and painted his own version in 1887, now in the Van Gogh Museum. Other standouts include Kameido ume yashiki (Plum Estate, Kameido) and Awa, Naruto no fuha (Wind and Waves at Naruto, Awa Province), both prized for their daring compositions and surviving color. The collection also contains bird-and-flower prints, fan prints, paintings, and sketches that demonstrate the breadth of Hiroshige’s achievement beyond the landscape series that made his name.
Takaaki Murakami, Christie’s head of Japanese and Korean Art, has observed that estimates for top Hiroshige impressions have risen steadily over the past six or seven years, yet results have frequently doubled the low estimates. Last year a single Hiroshige from another important collection sold at Sotheby’s for $2.8 million, nearly three times its high estimate, signaling robust demand for the best material. Medaugh’s group arrives at a moment when institutions and private collectors alike are looking beyond the most familiar Hokusai icons. Several sheets from the Medaugh collection were lent to the British Museum’s major Hiroshige exhibition in 2025, giving the public an early glimpse of their quality.
The prints will be on public view from September 11 through 14 at Rockefeller Center before the live auction begins at 10 a.m. on September 15. Because the collection was assembled with such consistent attention to condition and impression quality, specialists expect strong competition from both established Japanese-art collectors and newer buyers drawn to the visual immediacy of these landscapes. Hiroshige’s ability to capture fleeting weather, seasonal color, and the texture of everyday life in nineteenth-century Japan continues to resonate more than a century and a half after his death.
The sale is the first of three planned dispersals of the Medaugh holdings. Together they will test the depth of the current market for Japanese prints at the highest level. For collectors who have watched prices for the finest ukiyo-e climb, the opportunity to acquire early, well-preserved impressions from a single, rigorously curated source is rare. Those unable to attend in person can follow the auction through Christie’s online platforms.
Visit the Christie’s press announcement for full details and the illustrated catalogue, or read further reporting at ARTnews. Additional context on Hiroshige’s influence appears on the Van Gogh Museum site discussing the artist’s copy of the Sudden Shower print. Preview information is also listed through Asia Week New York. Collectors seeking comparable market data can consult recent results on Christie’s artist page for Hiroshige.
Mark your calendar for the September 11–14 preview and the September 15 sale. Whether you collect Japanese prints or simply admire the quiet power of a well-printed landscape, this is a chance to see one of the most important Hiroshige groups assembled in a generation before it is dispersed.
