Passionate Finger Puppets, Keisai Eisen

Archive Label 2003 (version 1): The illustrations in these books are from a genre known as shunga (literally “images of spring”). These erotic images constituted an important and accepted part of traditional woodcut prints. All of the major artists of ukiyoe designed prints of this type. The imagery of shunga represents another aspect of the pleasures of the “floating world”, a world of brothels, tea houses and popular theater frequented by the wealthy merchant classes of Edo (modern day Tokyo), Kyoto and Osaka. Despite its importance to the history of Japanese prints, shunga has been underrepresented in the Spencer Museum’s collection, so it was exciting to find such wonderful examples of this genre in uncommonly good condition. These books are three volumes of a single novel that focuses on lovers in an Osaka brothel. The care spent on these illustrations can be seen in the rich colors, embossing, and the use of metal dust such as brass. Archive Label 2003 (version 2): The illustrations in these books are from a genre known as shunga (literally “images of spring”). These erotic images constituted an important and accepted part of traditional woodcut prints. All of the major ukiyoe artists designed prints of this type. Shunga imagery represents a major aspect of the pleasures of the “floating world,” a world of brothels, tea houses and popular theater frequented by the wealthy merchant classes of Edo (modern day Tokyo), Kyoto and Osaka. Despite its importance to the history of Japanese prints, shunga has been underrepresented in the Spencer Museum’s collection, so it was exciting to find such wonderful examples of this genre in uncommonly good condition. These books are three volumes of a single novel that focuses on lovers in an Osaka brothel. The care spent on these illustrations can be seen in the rich colors, embossing, and the use of brass and other metal dusts. Mary Dusenbury, Laura Pasch