[Scroll of Japanese drawings of shunga (erotic) images, 18--?]

PXA 1117

fonds

18--?

Graphic Materials, Objects, Watercolours

457317

Digitised

1 scroll (9 drawings) - watercolour - 19 x 105 cm. unfurled, folding into silk cover tied with ribbon, 19 x 15 cm.

`Scrolls with erotic content are mostly horizontally orientated handscrolls (makimono). Very few vertical erotic scrolls are known' -- Japanese Erotic Fantasies: sexual imagery of the Edo period (NQ769.952/42)

In 1907 when David Scott Mitchell bequeathed his collection to the State Library of New South Wales (then known as the Public Library of New South Wales) to form the Mitchell Library, it included a small component of erotica, both print and realia. After the Mitchell Library opened in 1910, this material was separated from Mitchell’s bequest and housed separately. The collection became known as the David Scott Mitchell Collection of Erotica. As there is no evidence that David Scott Mitchell kept a separate collection of erotica or bequeathed his erotica material separately to the Library, it was decided that items from Mitchell’s bequest should not be maintained as a separate collection

Provenance of item derived from a list of material compiled by Professor W.M MacCallum (President of the Library Trustees) on the 1st April 1910.