Eizan: Love making and a sugoroku board
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Kikugawa Eizan (1787-1867)

A high-ranking courtesan and her visitor making love amidst richly patterned robes and beddings. At their heads a tabakobon smoking set and a black-lacquered tansu chest. In the background a sugoroku board (Japanese backgammon).

Series: E-awase kingaishô (kinkaishô) (A picture contest in the brocade quarters)

Date: c. 1815

Original Japanese colour woodblock print. Size: Horizontal Ôban, 25.7 x 37,8 cm

Excellent impression and colours, with gaufrage. Full-sized and unbacked, the usual vertical centrefold smoothed. A few light stains, otherwise very nice condition.

From a very lovely and rare series of twelve erotic prints, in which the artist placed particular emphasis on a lavish, brocade-like design.

Ill. in Calza, Poem of the Pillow and other stories. London/New York 2010, p. 405ff (fig. p. 413). Timothy Clark et al., Shunga, sex and pleasure in Japanese Art. Cat. British Museum 2013, p. 416. Fig. 4. Cf. also Ofer Shagan, Japanese Erotic Art. The Hidden World of Shunga, London 2013, p. 121, no. 6.10. Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA), No. 2014.65.2.11 (with a translation of the couple’s dialogue).

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