Lot Essay
We know almost nothing about Katsukawa Shungyo. He may have been a pupil of Katsukawa Shunsho (1726-1792) as a handful of his prints and paintings is signed with the master's surname. For Shungyo's painting "Beauty looking in a mirror" in the Tokyo National Museum, see Yamaguchi Keizaburo, ed., Shunsho, in Nikuhitsu ukiyoe (Ukiyo-e paintings), vol.4 (Tokyo: Shueisha, 1982), pl. 39.