Twelve erotic illustrations

Name: KITAGAWA UTAMARO (1753?-1806)
Brand: Twelve erotic illustrations
Price: 6000.00 USD
Availability: SoldOut

Price Realised USD 7,500

Estimate

USD 4,000 - USD 6,000

Closed: 7 Nov 2019

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KITAGAWA UTAMARO (1753?-1806)

Twelve erotic illustrations

Price Realised USD 7,500

Closed: 7 Nov 2019

Price Realised USD 7,500

Closed: 7 Nov 2019

Details Lot Essay Related Articles More from

KITAGAWA UTAMARO (1753?-1806)
Twelve erotic illustrations
Woodblock prints mounted as an album, from the set Ehon Komachi-biki (Picture Book: Pulling Komachi)

8¹⁄₂ x 12³⁄₈ in. (21.6 x 31.4 cm.) each approximately

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Lot Essay

This is the last one of Utamaro’s three masterpieces of (color-printed erotic picture) albums, following the 1788 creation of (Poems of the pillow) and 1799 (Unravelling the threads of desire). Applied similar styles, the bodies appeared to be rather curvaceous. (Pulling Komachi) is a popular Edo phrase that stands for “making love to a beautiful woman”, as Ono no Komachi was a legendary beauty of the time.
The preface and text pages are unpresented, however this is a complete set of twelve illustrations from the album. Based on the information from Shugo Asano and Timothy Clark’s publishing (Tokyo: Asahi shinbun, 1995), this is probably the second issue. The intended order of pictures is to-the-date unknown.