This Is Perhaps The Most Famous,

of all Japanese wood block prints, 

all images © The British Museum, it is the Great Wave, a part of 'Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji: The Great Wave off the Coast of Kanagawa', Katsushika Hokusai, about 1831, housed in the British Museum, there were thousands of editions made of it, until the wood blocks wore out, 

 Capucine Korenberg, a scientist at The British Museum, decided to try and work out a chronology based on the specific characteristics of each impression. At the time of filming, there were 111 known versions, and a further two have been uncovered since, 

the original blocks have now long gone, so Korenberg relied on tiny details in the images themselves, such as the quality or completeness of linear elements, plus the quality of colour or alignment of different layers. She could begin to narrow down the states, which refers to impressions made when a key block,

through a painstaking compare-and-contrast process using the original pieces from the museum’s collection and additional high-resolution photos supplied by institutions around the world, Korenberg narrowed down the number of woodblock wear states to eight,

she also employed ultraviolet and infrared technologies to get a closer look at the coloration and how, over time, certain elements faded due to fugitive pigments, Her next challenge is to find out what the print looked like when it was newly pressed and pristine, you can see more of Korenberg’s research in her report, there is also a book out on the same subject, Jason Kottke's look at the evolution of “The Great Wave.” above a video of the painstaking work that went into the search to find the order of printing, it is a tad long so a mug of coffee it is, what an amazing amount of detection work.