Artist / author: Signed on one plate; the signature ends 成 画 (…nari ga). Ascribed by the previous Japanese owner to Yoshinari 芳成 / 好成 — see note below Title: The volume is marked 全 zen, "complete in one volume") Genre: Shunga 春画 / shunpon — erotic illustrated book Date: ca. 1855–1868 (Ansei–Keiō, late Edo / Bakumatsu), on stylistic grounds Technique: Woodblock print, nishiki-e (polychrome) on washi 和紙 Format: Bound Ehon, approx. 18*12 cm -------------------------------------------------------------------- Condition Good overall. The printing is strong, with metallic pigments and burnishing present in several compositions. One page shows a minor repair to the margin. Some pages show a soiling area at the top, which is not obtrusive. The texts throughout are clearly readable. Please refer to the images. --------------------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT THE WORK Shunpon were bound to be read, not framed. They circulated hand to hand through lending libraries and private circles, were hidden, borrowed and worn out, and the great majority survive today only as loose plates pulled from broken volumes. This one is still a book: sewn, in its printed cover with the plum-blossom title slip, with the text leaves intact between the pictures. The five double-page compositions run from the almost decorous to the wholly explicit, which is the usual rhythm of the genre. The first opening is a domestic interior — a couple beside a large bronze brazier, a carp banner hanging behind them, a tray of blue-and-white ware at their side — and reads as abuna-e, "dangerous pictures", suggestion rather than statement. From there the book moves indoors and out: a riverside scene under willows with the far bank and a bridge receding into a blue-graded sky, and interiors framed by patterned fusuma, bamboo screens and open shōji. The fourth plate contains a small joke at the reader's expense — an open shunpon lies discarded on the floor of the room, the book inside the book. On the attribution: the previous owner in Japan gives the artist as Yoshinari. A signature is present on one plate and its second character is clearly 成, which supports that reading, but I have not been able to match this book to an entry in the standard shunga bibliographies or in the Nichibunken and Ritsumeikan enpon databases. It is offered as signed and as ascribed, not as documented. The text inside might have more clues about the scenes and the author.