Edo Period Shunga Woodblock Prints, Six Double-Page Designs Mounted as a Brocade Scroll
Edo Period Shunga Woodblock Prints, Six Double-Page Designs Mounted as a Brocade Scroll
- Dispatch
- Prepared and sent from Tokyo within 7–14 days, often sooner, or as arranged
- Arrival
- États-Unis · usually 4–7 days after dispatch, insured and tracked Check the Shipping Flowchart here
- Import
Duties and customs · View the estimate
A guide for this piece: about $36, based on the 10% US charge on the declared value of goods made in Japan.
The final figure is set by US Customs and depends on where the piece was made and the kind of object it is. Many antiques over a century old carry no ordinary duty; most jewellery and leather goods add a single-digit rate.
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How the estimate is reached · Ask for a figure on this piece
- Character
- Ornate 7.5 of 10 ·
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- Within one Tokyo business day · Ask the curator team
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- Authenticity guaranteed · How we grade
Every piece is measured by hand, in centimetres as Japan measures. Please allow 1–2 cm (about ½ inch) for the give of the material and the hand that held the tape.
Where each figure is taken · View the plate
Object, sculpture and ceramics
Condition report
Very Good
- Giftable
- Mint
- Excellent
- Very Good
- Good
- Honest Wear
- As Found
Six Rooms, Six Stories
Six openings from an Edo erotic picture book, each a small domestic drama told across two sheets: a letter half-read beside potted irises, a view of Fuji through a window, a quarrel that turns to comedy. Dense running dialogue fills every sky, the voice of the townspeople and their own pleasure books, now kept together in a brocade-wrapped roll.
Best for: Collectors of Edo shunga and ukiyo-e book illustration
Condition notes
Toning, light soiling, creases at the central folds and softly worn edges consistent with age; surface rubbing to one face in the final design.
Grades, ratings and commentary are given to the best of our ability, knowledge and experience, and condition remains partly a matter of personal perception. What we stand behind without qualification is authenticity, truthful description and provenance, to the best of our knowledge. How we grade
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Six double-page shunga designs printed from woodblocks in the Edo period, with a printed text page, now mounted together and rolled in a green brocade cover.
This piece belongs to the private room of the house and is shown to adults only.
The Piece
Shunga, the spring pictures of the Edo townsman, were most often met not as single sheets but in enpon, small illustrated books passed from hand to hand and kept close. Each opening here spreads one scene across two sheets in the classic book format, with flowing dialogue and commentary filling the margins: lovers by a half-read letter and a pot of irises, a quiet room with Mount Fuji framed in its window, a courtesan with golden hairpins before a screen of flying cranes, and a final scene of comic uproar in which a quarrel tumbles into farce.
The drawing is lively and the interiors carefully furnished: lacquer stands, a kettle, tobacco sets and patterned bedding. A printed text page with a crested packet completes the set. The designs are unsigned and no artist is recorded.
Details
- Artist: Not recorded
- Genre: Shunga, makura-e book illustration
- Medium: Woodblock print, described as sumizuri (ink-printed), with colour as seen
- Designs: Six, each across two sheets, with one text page
- Sheet size: About 18 x 15 cm (7.1 x 5.9 in) each, as stated
- Mount: Rolled scroll in a green brocade cover with a blue cord
- Period: Edo, as offered
Condition
- Toning, light soiling and creases at the central folds.
- Softly worn and uneven sheet edges; rubbing to one face in the final design.
Condition grade B (very good) on the Japanese scale; see Japanese condition ranks, explained.
Authenticity & Care
Offered as genuine Edo-period woodblock prints, unsigned and unattributed. Keep rolled loosely in its cover, away from light and damp, and unroll on a clean flat surface.
Delivery from Japan
The scroll travels rolled, as it is meant to, wrapped in tissue inside a rigid padded box, insured and tracked by EMS or an equivalent express service. Import duties and taxes, where applicable, are payable on arrival. Every sale is final; please ask anything you wish to know before you buy, and see our published policy.
Considered offers are welcome through Send an Offer, and each one is reviewed personally. Further pieces of the kind are kept in Shunga and Hidden Arts and in our woodblock print archive.
Concierge
Searching for Edo enpon or shunga albums? Our Hunting Salon™ locates such pieces across Japan's private collector circles, then inspects, documents and delivers them to you. Begin a Hunting Salon™ request.
Collectors also search: Edo shunga woodblock · enpon book plates · makura-e scroll
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