EISEN Keisai. (1790-1848)

Lovers. c1822-5

Category

Japanese | 20th Century

Series

Secret Words of Courtesans.

Publisher

Privately published.

oban yoko-e, 36.0 cm × 24.0 cm

Very good impression and colour, the purple completely unfaded. Slight soil, a few thin spots in the paper, otherwise very good condition. Large sheet.

A plate from the series 'Secret Words of Courtesans'. Abuna-e (risque pictures) were sexually suggestive but not explicit. Here a bare chested woman turns from the man to tie an iwata-sash, indicating she is pregnant. In the background, a folding screen (byōbu) is decorated with chrysanthemums.

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EISEN Keisai. (1790-1848)

Yokkaichi: Hanazono of the Miu-raya. c.1821

Category

Japanese | Beauties

Series

Tôkaidô Board Game of Courtesans. Keisei dôchû sugoroku.

Publisher

Tsutaya Kichizo (Koeido)

oban tate-e, 25.1 cm × 37.1 cm

Excellent impression and colour. Some soil along the right side and trimmed, otherwise very good condition.

The courtesan, Hanazono of the Miu-raya, clutches a wad of paper tissues (kaishi) tucked into her obi while admiring a white orchid in a wall basket. The series (A Traveling Game with Yoshiwara Courtesans Matched with the Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido) is a mitate, an unexpected juxtaposition, in which famous courtesans are paralleled with a station from the Tokaido road. The inset shows Yokkachi, the forty-third post en route from Edo to Kyoto.

Signed Keisai Eisen ga with 'kiwame' seal.

Boston Museum of Fine Arts Impression.

£1250

EISEN Keisai. (1790-1848)

Lovers reclining on a futon.

Category

Japanese | Shunga

Publisher

oban Yoko-e, 38.0 cm × 25.0 cm

Excellent impression and very good colour. Some turning of the purple to brown. A centrefold and expertly repaired worming in the middle of the print, otherwise good condition.

A shunga based on a design Katsukawa Shuncho's The Thread of Present-day love encounters. A prostitute and her young customer, who has come to conduct his assignation without his father's consent, bargain with one another, while the girl coyly invites him to stay. Unsigned as are most erotic prints. 

Please contact the gallery for an uncensored picture.

£600

EISEN Keisai. (1790-1848)

Eijiri, Tamakoto of the Owariya. c.1821.

Category

Japanese | 20th Century

Series

Board Game of Courtesans. Keisei dôchû sugoroku.

Publisher

Tsutaya Kichizo (Koeido)

oban tate-e, 24.9 cm × 37.0 cm

Excellent impression with fine bokashi over Mount Fuji, omitted in some editions. Excellent colour. Very good condition.

The courtesan Tamakoto of the Owariya wearing a magnificent kimono, lavishly decorated with a dragon emerging from a thick cloud of black smoke surrounding Mount Fuji and ascending the heavens. The wide obi sash was fashionable during the Bunkwa era and sometimes measured an absurd width of twenty-five inches. Tamakoto's obi is decorated with pink peonies. Eisen draws her in a 'crooked' manner, true to the squat like form of Japanese women of this period. This is a marked contrast to the lithe beauties of Utamaro and Eishi. 

Tamakoto is paralleled with a snowscape of Eijiri; a view from the Tokaido (coastal thoroughfare linking Edo with Keishi). Signed Keisai Eisen ga. 

Boston Museum of Fine Arts Impression.

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EISEN Keisai. (1790-1848)

Two lovers. c.1822-5

Category

Japanese | 20th Century

Series

The Secret Language of Courtesans. Keisei higo.

Publisher

privately published.

oban yoko-e, 26.3 cm × 38.1 cm

Very good impression and condition. Excellent colour.

In this abuna-e (risky picture) from 'The Secret Language of Courtesans', two lovers are smoking. The woman is holding her pipe in a highly suggestive manner with the intent of teasing both her companion and the viewer. Their kimonos are tantalisingly entwined and the woman has a wad of tissues stashed in her obi, ready for the imminent throes of passion.

Literature: Plate 60 Pg.168 Uhlenbeck/Winkel, Japanese Erotic Fantasies, 2005 IBSN 9074822665.

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