Unidentified Artist 作者未詳
Images from The Brushwood Fence Scroll
(Koshibagaki-zōshi) and Other Works
Japan, Edo period (1615–1868), 1849
Album; ink and color on silk
Purchase, Richard Lane Collection, 2003
(2008.0674)

The original version of The Brushwood Fence Scroll (Koshibagaki-zōshi), often described as the earliest work of Japanese erotic art, was painted around 1172 and offered as a wedding present to Taira no Tokuko (1155–1213), daughter of Taira no Kiyomori (1118–1181), head of the most powerful military clan at the time. Since then, The Brushwood Fence Scroll, which depicts erotic encounters between Heian courtiers, developed a sacred reputation in the genre of shunga and has been copied innumerable times. This particular copy, included in an album compiled by Shinozaki Shōchiku (1781–1851) and dating to the mid-19th century, testifies to the enduring popularity of the scroll.

Taira no Tokuko herself appears as a character in a 19th-century erotic work displayed elsewhere in this exhibition.

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