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Details
SHUNGA -- Meiji period hand-coloured woodblock erotic scenes. Japan, c.1894-1905.
Oblong octavo (189 x 290mm). 13 woodblock illustrations, mounted, all finished with contemporary hand-colouring. (Light soiling mainly confined to mounts.) Original decorative card wrappers, title-slip to upper cover with erased calligraphic title (disbound).
EROTICA AS WAR PROPAGANDA. This highly unusual item probably dates from the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-1895 or the later 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War. Although the Meiji government had repressed the production of shunga with the introduction of western morality and standards, such erotic material was unofficially supplied to men at the front, thus continuing the traditional 'apotropaic function of "contest pictures", or "victory pictures" ... and provided stimulating images for sexual relief' (Buckland in BM Shunga pp.459-460). Ironically, the Meiji administration's desire to westernize and industrialize provided a new erotic fantasy in the guise of the nurse. The present work includes an illustration of a Japanese nurse in a western-style uniform having intercourse with a soldier in a western-style interior. Other westerners appear, including in two entirely non-Japanese scenes: a westerner in military uniform interacting with a western woman identified by her red hair and western clothes; and an unsettling scene of a Cossack molesting a Chinese woman, the former depicted in traditional shunga-style with enlarged genitalia, and the latter with bound feet. This set-piece of erotica works well as propaganda: the virile attacker (Russia) is forcibly rejected by the weak woman (China), and his bayonet lies uselessly on the floor. Presumably the Japanese soldier need not fear either, and thus this piece is also a 'victory picture' (kachi-e), like the traditional shunga carried by samurai to ward off evil and carry himself to victory. Cf. BM Shunga pp.296-299, 454-463.
Oblong octavo (189 x 290mm). 13 woodblock illustrations, mounted, all finished with contemporary hand-colouring. (Light soiling mainly confined to mounts.) Original decorative card wrappers, title-slip to upper cover with erased calligraphic title (disbound).
EROTICA AS WAR PROPAGANDA. This highly unusual item probably dates from the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-1895 or the later 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War. Although the Meiji government had repressed the production of shunga with the introduction of western morality and standards, such erotic material was unofficially supplied to men at the front, thus continuing the traditional 'apotropaic function of "contest pictures", or "victory pictures" ... and provided stimulating images for sexual relief' (Buckland in BM Shunga pp.459-460). Ironically, the Meiji administration's desire to westernize and industrialize provided a new erotic fantasy in the guise of the nurse. The present work includes an illustration of a Japanese nurse in a western-style uniform having intercourse with a soldier in a western-style interior. Other westerners appear, including in two entirely non-Japanese scenes: a westerner in military uniform interacting with a western woman identified by her red hair and western clothes; and an unsettling scene of a Cossack molesting a Chinese woman, the former depicted in traditional shunga-style with enlarged genitalia, and the latter with bound feet. This set-piece of erotica works well as propaganda: the virile attacker (Russia) is forcibly rejected by the weak woman (China), and his bayonet lies uselessly on the floor. Presumably the Japanese soldier need not fear either, and thus this piece is also a 'victory picture' (kachi-e), like the traditional shunga carried by samurai to ward off evil and carry himself to victory. Cf. BM Shunga pp.296-299, 454-463.
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