Item from the Mokuhankan Flea Market

Page from 'Poem of the Pillow'

Size: 26.0cm by 41.0cm (10.24 in by 16.14 in) | Enlargement | Shipping Code: [L] ?

Designer: Kitagawa Utamaro

Era: Late Showa | Currency: $ / £ / €

Price: ¥ 12,000$ 115.00£ 85.75€ 96.25 [Item has been sold]

Description: This is one page (spread) from what is perhaps the most famous shunga album of all time - 歌まくら (The Poem of the Pillow), by Utamaro.

Most such albums had at least one 'safe' image, with no depiction of any explicit sex act. (Some researchers feel that this was done so that when a child would ask "Mom, what are reading?", there would be something to show ...)

We see a couple up on the second floor of a restaurant, presumably having finished their meal ... The poem reads: 蛤にはし（嘴）をしっかとはさまれて　鴫立ちかぬる秋の夕ぐれ, which is translated on a page of the British Museum website as: "Its beak firmly caught in the clamshell, the snipe cannot fly away of an autumn evening."

Browse thumbnail pages of various selections from the catalogue ...

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