Posted by Theo de Kreijger on February 12, 1998 at 03:18:30:
Dear Hans Olof Johansson and all visitors of this wonderfull bulletin board,
My mother (believe it or not) purchased these first two pages of a shunga without knowing the nature of it. She just thought that the print was beautifull and right she was. But I quickly discovered that the reading woman held some white cloth in her left hand and that her right hand was someplace out of sight(?!?) This would have been the start of something less innocent, but the rest of the pages are missing ...
There is also an uninvited guest standing inside her bedroom. It's a young samurai watching her silently. If you look closer, he is rising out of her quilt and appeares to be a ghost. What is he up to? In Japanese literature evil ghosts sometimes try to withdraw life (energy) from the living. I found a page of the same shunga where this is shown. I hope that you will forgive me that I didn't include this picture here. I don't want to get thrown of this bulletin board (you know).
See: Erotique du Japon - Théo Lésoualc'h - 1987 - page 200/201
That the designer combined both a ghost-story and a shunga was quite a surprise to me . But the fact that the design was luxuriously printed (with gaufrage and silver) showed that there was a public for this kind of shunga, willing to pay quite a lot to obtain it.
What I really would like to know is:
1. What's the name of the story?
2. Who are the two persons?
3. What's the date of the shunga?
4. Is the designer (indeed) Kunisada?
5. Anything else interesting about the shunga ...
If you want to take a closer look then use the link to go to some more pictures.
Yours truly, Theo de Kreijger