Visconti – Shunja Erotic Art #527

Description

“SHUNGA” New collection of erotic pens

After the very successful release of the first edition of the “Giacomo Casanova” fountain pen with an erotic subject, we promised to come out later with an edition with a more “hard” design. Many collectors claimed that the first edition drawing of the erotic pen was too delicate, almost depicting a romantic scene.
The “Shunga”, literally ‘images of spring’, are polychrome xylographs of an erotic subject, made by the leading masters of the Japanese Ukiyo-e school from the early 17th century to the early 20th century.

Produced for a joyful urban society, the Shungas had multiple functions, from that of illustrating love novels, to that of album sheets for the education of young brides, to that of lucky charms for warriors in battle. From primitive painters like Moronobu, to classics like Utamaro and finally to the so-called decadent ones like Kunisada, all Ukiyo-e artists have created some masterpieces in the genre.

Secretly collected in Europe since the early nineteenth century in the cabinets of amateurs, in the studios of writers and artists, such as Beardsley and Klimt, and finally collected in the Enfer of the great libraries of the world, these works, once considered disconcerting, have now been re-evaluated and appreciated as a refined mirror of the customs of their time.