Chokosai Eiri - Fumi no kiyogaki

Chokosai Eiri Collection

Fumi no kiyogaki 婦美の清書き 

(Models of Calligraphy)

Neat Version of a Love Letter or Pure Drawings of Female Beauty

FORMAT: Folded Album of 11 erotic colour woodblock prints (unusual as the norm is 12 prints)
DATE: circa 1801

Overview of images;

PRINT#1

PRINT#2 - Two females, one woman is lubricating the wooden dildo with the cream from the shell shaped container. She says, ‘Seeing as we’re going to do it like this, I’ll put lots of the cream on it. So really make yourself come. Without the cream this big one would not go in.’ The aphrodisiac cream is obviously being used as a lubricant. The other woman puts a hand up to the dildo and urges her friend, ‘Hurry up and put it in. I want to come. I want to come five or six times without stopping.’

PRINT#3 - From 1639 to 1853 the Dutch were the only Europeans allowed to trade in Japan. They were confined to a small artificial island in Nagasaki Harbour and their activities were closely regulated by the Japanese. No European women were allowed in Japan, but the Dutch were permitted to enjoy the company of local courtesans.
As we look through the window we see a well-dressed European, surely intended to be a senior Dutch trader, with a Japanese women, who would be a Nagasaki courtesan. They are both heavily dressed for winter, but she leans out of an open Western-style window, suggesting that they are in the East India Company compound on the island of Dejima (which, of course, Eiri would never have seen). It is elegantly fragranced with burning incense. The European speaks gibberish, while the woman protests, ‘I can’t make out what you’re on about. Push it in tighter! What am I to do?!’

 

PRINT#4 - Lovemaking scene at the bath, the woman holding a towel decorated with a sea star motif in her mouth and a cup of tea and a small cloth bag resting on the lid of the wooden tub (hinoku taruburo).

PRINT#5 - A couple making love beside a tray with dishes and a sake kettle

PRINT#6 - A couple making love in front of a six-fold screen painted with birds and plum blossom

 PRINT#7

PRINT#8 - PRINT2 shows two women with a dildo. This type of dildo, with a cord attached, was intended to be worn by women, not men. When two women were playing together it was worn around the hips: when one woman was enjoying it alone, she tied it to her ankle. In this image the  woman is masterbating with the large club instead of a dildo and tied it to her leg while the naked man watches her intently.

PRINT#9

PRINT#10 - A couple making love outdoors beside an abaraya

PRINT#11 - A couple making love in a room, in front of a low screen, the man unkempt and a discarded comb on the futon. 

FRONT