Shunga Tea Towel

Exclusive to the British Museum, a tea towel featuring a scene from Kitagawa Utamaro’s Poem of the Pillow (1788).

This image shown on this machine washable cotton tea towel is a section from an image entitled Lovers in an upstairs room, and shows a tender moment between a couple.

The original print by Kitagawa Utamaro (c.1756-1806) is part of a series entitled Utamakura, or “Poem of the Pillow”, and can be seen housed in the British Museum’s collection. In early modern Japan, thousands of sexually explicit paintings, prints and illustrated books were produced. These were collectively called “spring pictures”, or shunga.

A gorgeous gift for the home.