Schunga. 12 grandes peintures sur soie

Accordion-fold album (orihon) containing twelve large paintings on silk, each measuring 24 x 34.5 cm, depicting couples entwined in carnal intimacy. Each scene is skilfully framed by elements of domestic architecture - screens, sliding partitions, windows - which make the interior itself the theatre of the gaze, in a staging of voyeuristic revelation characteristic of Japanese erotic art. The silks are loosely mounted within movable paper frames.

Boards covered in patterned green silk; label on the upper board no longer present. Fabric faded, a few perforations, traces of dampstaining to the lower part of the upper board, small losses at the edges, splitting at the joint at head and foot of the upper board.

These paintings, remarkable for their great delicacy of execution and refined compositional elegance, display a clear affinity of manner with the work of the painter and illustrator Yamamoto Shōun (1870-1965), a transitional figure between late ukiyo-e and shin-hanga, particularly celebrated for his bijin prints, including the series Ima Sugata (1906-1909). No autograph shunga production by Shōun is, however, documented to date: this attribution should therefore be understood as one of stylistic affinity, within the well-attested tradition of erotic albums painted “in the manner of” or “after” great names of printmaking.

It may be noted that a comparable album of erotic paintings on silk, sold at Bonhams under the explicit designation “After Yamamoto Shoun”, was dated to the Shōwa era. Painted shunga (nikuhitsu shunga), intended for a wealthy clientele, did indeed continue discreetly well after the end of the Edo period, despite the official opprobrium directed at the genre from the Meiji era onwards.

A rare complete ensemble of twelve compositions, remarkable for their chromatic unity and great elegance of execution, standing in the finest tradition of Japanese painted shunga and to be associated with the stylistic world of Yamamoto Shōun.