Scroll (210 x 3690 mm.), endpapers of gold with silk brocade backing, wooden roller. [Japan: late Edo].

This attractive scroll, executed by a highly accomplished artist, comprises of 12 erotic scenes (the well-known “set of 12“ format), in vivid coloring, depicting a range of sexual activities. As in many shunga handscrolls, the paintings feature a sequence of lovemaking positions in no apparent order. The scenes are finely painted with considerable detail, employing much gold, silver, and other metallic pigments. Throughout, the artist has used a fine brush to achieve great detail of fabric, hair, and faces. All the women have... More

Scroll (290 x 5840 mm. including endpapers), silk brocade endpaper at front depicting a pair of Mandarin ducks (symbol for fidelity between two people), wooden core roller. [Japan: late Edo].

A fine erotic scroll with 12 paintings (the well-known “set of 12“ format), in vivid coloring, depicting a range of sexual activities. As in many shunga handscrolls, the paintings feature a sequence of lovemaking positions in no apparent order, with no development, simply presenting a variety of couplings and sexual techniques. All the participants in this scroll have Heian-period hairstyles, and several of the couples are clearly aristocrats. In the... More

Scroll (290 x 4780 mm.), with gold paper inner endpaper at front, wooden core roller. [Japan]: n.d., but late Edo or early Meiji.

A fine example of an erotic scroll, anonymously painted as usual but with great skill. The scroll contains 12 erotic scenes painted on silk (the well-known “set of 12“ format) of men and women engaged in various sexual activities. As in many shunga hand scrolls, the paintings feature a sequence of lovemaking positions in no apparent order.

The figures are drawn to express a fluidity of movement, passion, and pleasure. The accomplished artist has used delicate shading... More

Scroll (320 x 5250 mm.), silk-brocade front outer endpaper, with floral drawing in color at beginning, wooden core roller. [Japan]: after 1823.

The 12 finely rendered erotic drawings present on this scroll, in the famous “set of 12” format, have been attributed on the manuscript label of the scroll’s box to Chōkyōsai Eiri (active 1790s-1801), a little known pupil of Hosoda Eishi (1756-1829), who for some years was an equal rival to Utamaro. Chōkyōsai Eiri produced an album of 13 large-size color woodblock prints, entitled Fumi no kiyogaki [Neat Version of the Love Letter [or] Pure Drawings of... More

16 double-page & four single-page color-printed woodcuts. 13; 11; 9 folding leaves. Three vols. Small 8vo, orig. speckled semi-stiff boards (boards rubbed), orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers, new stitching. [Japan, probably Edo]: manuscript inscription dated “1832” at end of each volume.

First edition and very rare; we do not find this book listed in WorldCat or in the Union Catalogue of Japanese Books. The Preface is signed by Akikei (or Akikage) Higashikuni.

This work is an erotic version of Shiki no en, an 18th-century group of songs on the four seasons of love from the Yamada ryu school... More

Three frontis. & 21 double-page color-printed woodblock illus. 16; 12.5; 13.5 folding leaves. 12mo (113 x 80 mm.), orig. decorated semi-stiff wrappers with images of rabbits, snowflakes, & flowers, labels on upper covers with motif of flowers, old stitching. [Japan]: late Edo or early Meiji.

A very rare small-format erotic work, written by Ikkadō Injin 逸桂堂淫人 and illustrated by Kaikōtei Shujin 開好亭主人, both clearly pen names. These volumes are very finely illustrated with the theme of “snow, moon, and flower.”

The artist was very accomplished, and the images are highly complex and skilled. The volumes use almost all... More

14 double-page woodblock illus. 26 folding leaves. 8vo, in orihon (accordion) format, orig. boards (covers a bit worn), orig. block-printed title label on upper cover. [Japan]: 1836.

First edition, early printing, of this famous illustrated book of erotica. “This is the most important printed erotic illustrated book by 14 painters of Kyoto and Osaka, particularly artists of the Maruyama-Shijo and related schools, [including the well-known Kanō Eigaku 狩野永岳, Maruyama Ōshin 円山応震, Tosa Mitsubumi 土佐光文, Gantai 岸岱, and Okamoto Toyohiko 岡本豊彦]…

“It is a work of great subtlety, in terms both of the delicacy and reticence of the scenes of lovemaking... More

Vol. I: Illustrated “title-page,” one double-page woodcut with foldouts to form a four-panel diptych, with the addition of a “trick super flap” depicting three female genitalia (young woman, mistress, & wife), six double-page woodcuts, & two single-page woodcuts, all color-printed; & three double-page black & white woodcuts. Vol. II: Illustrated “title-page,” five double-page woodcuts, & two single-page woodcuts, all color-printed; & four double-page black & white woodcuts. Vol. III: Illustrated “title-page,” four double-page woodcuts, & two full-page woodcuts, all color-printed; & three black & white double-page woodcuts. All leaves have color-printed borders. .5, 1 folding leaf of preface (color-printed), 13... More

Full-page woodcut on first page of each. Two or three leaves for each pamphlet. Small 4to, self-bound. All Osaka: see below, mid- to late Edo.

Odoke banashi is a genre of humorous or satirical literature, employing puns, culturally coded jokes, and wordplay, and issued in inexpensive, ephemeral pamphlets of a few leaves. They helped to shape traditional comedic storytelling forms such as rakugo.

Jippensha Ikku (1765–1831) was an extremely successful comic writer and illustrator who wrote in a variety of genres, including gesaku fiction, kibyōshi, sharebon, kokkeibon, odoke banashi, and numerous others.

Due to their ephemeral nature, odoke banashi are... More

One double-page black & white woodcut. 48 folding leaves. Small 8vo, orig. green wrappers (wrappers a little tired), orig. block-printed title label on upper cover (label soiled), new stitching. [Edo]: Preface dated 1778.

First edition of this rare sharebon, stories revolving around humor and entertainments in the pleasure quarters, most popular in the 1770s and 1780s. This novel, a real “tearjerker,” is one of the masterpieces about the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters (see Cecilia Segawa Seigle, Yoshiwara: The Glittering World of the Japanese Courtesan, p. 141). The novel was a blockbuster of its time, focusing on the irreconcilability of romantic love... More

21 double-page (one with a “trick” fold-out) & four full-page color-printed woodblock illus. 17; 12; 15 folding leaves. Three vols. 8vo, orig. semi-stiff wrappers (rubbed), orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers (not present on the first vol.), orig. stitching. [Japan]: Preface dated 1826.

A remarkable and unusual shunga, which depicts a hermaphrodite (three scenes), a ménage à trois, scenes of voyeurism and masturbation, a childbirth scene, a deity with the face of a vagina, and a nun having sex with a man (two scenes). The color printing and embossing are exquisite throughout, fresh and highly detailed.

The... More