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When unrolled, this surviving scroll reveals 10 intimate scenes, each isolated against a warm golden background rather than situated in recognizable domestic or outdoor settings, as many shunga are. Victorian-era Europe and America tended to be a bit more prurient about sex.” I imagine that many of those that were produced got destroyed, or at least hidden after the arrival of Western travelers in the late 19th through the early 20th century. “I could be wrong, but I think there tend to be more printed examples as opposed to painted. Miyagawa Choshun, detail of shunga handscroll (early 18th century) (click to enlarge) Not to say that there were not (and are not still extant) a fair number of examples of the subject. “Probably partially because there was a larger audience for male/female shunga.
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“I think that was not typically portrayed,” Jeff Olson, d irector of Japanese art at Bonhams, told Hyperallergic. Painted by Miyagawa Chosun, the work has been apparently virtually unseen since the 1970s, when images were published in a book (traces of it then vanished). The works are now traveling from a private Japanese collection for Bonhams’ Fine Japanese Works of Art auction occurring on March 16 in New York City. One early 18th-century handscroll has survived the years as a rare and well-preserved example of gay shunga. In the many works that emerged, however, encounters between men were uncommon depictions. Shunga, the Japanese term for erotic art, was highly popular during the Edo Period, with artists still creating to fill demand even after the government banned the explicit illustrations in 1722.
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Miyagawa Choshun, detail of shunga handscroll (early 18th century) (all images courtesy Bonhams)