Three erotic scenes ("shunga")

Description

colour woodblock print / paper, a) sheet of the series “Ehon tsuhi no hinagata” - “Models of Couples”, m: 25 x 36,5 cm, ca. 1811

The Japanese painter Katsushika Hokusai was one of the most important representatives of the “ukiyo-e” genre. His most famous works are “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” and the colour woodblocks of “36 Views of Mount Fuji”.

Additionally: two sheets, presumably Keisai Eisen (1790-1848):
b) “shunga”, m: 26 x 37,5 cm
c) “shunga”, m: 22,5 x 31 cm

“Ukiyo-e” translates roughly as “pictures of the floating world” and is a collective name for a specific genre of Japanese painting and printmaking, which reflects the attitude to life and the world view of the rising middle class and the broad majority of the population in the major cities of Japan, especially in Edo (Tokyo), during the so-called Edo period.