Shunga (literally "Picture Of Spring") was a style of Japanese erotic woodblock prints popular from the 1600s through the 1900s, primarily in the Edo period. The style is unmistakable - Japanese men & women in ornamental dress getting it on in a variety of fashions with massively oversized & swollen genitalia in what are often intricate and carefully rendered scenes.

It's somewhat unique among global erotica traditions because there was very little stigma around shunga, both consumers & the artists themselves. They were enjoyed by both women & men of middle & upper social classes (the poor would have been unable to afford such erotic luxuries). And there was an actual aura of superstition surrounding the prints as good luck charms - samurais took them campaigning for protection from harm, seafarers for favorable trade winds, merchants for the safety of goods, etc. A convenient excuse for what was likely masturbation fodder for the deprived traveler!

Most famous artists of the era who produced ukiyo-e prints - "Pictures of the Floating World", entertaining scenes from pleasure districts, courtesans, kabuki, and landscapes - also tried their hand at this subset of shunga. These include luminaries such as Yanagawa Shigenobu and Katsushika Hokusai, the latter being the creator of the famous & oft-reproduced Great Wave Off Kanagawa print and the infamous Dream Of The Fisherman's Wife (pictured here), which could be a considered a precursor to the "tentacle porn" of modern Japan - clearly there's a centuries-old tradition there ;)

Another interesting - and many would say appealing - facet of shunga is the relative focus on women's pleasure. The women thus depicted are clearly aroused and the sexual enjoyment apparently mutual, not always the case in Western erotica.

Along with the official "shunga" images here we've also included a few prints that lean more towards the aforementioned "ukiyo-e" in their depictions of courtesans, to give an idea of the greater artistic style shunga stemmed from (also because they're lovely images in their own right). More images will be added to this gallery as we acquire them. Enjoy!