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Hokusai Katsushika (1760-1849)
The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife
aka Tako to Ama (蛸と海女) (The Octopuses and the Diver)
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Hokusai Katsushika (1760-1849)
The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife
aka Tako to Ama (蛸と海女) (The Octopuses and the Diver)
Original Shunga Erotic Woodcut
Year of Publication: 1814
Year of Printing: early XIX Century
Overall size: 223 x 272 mm
Image size: 181 x 262 mm
Condition: good (restored, backed on professional acid-free tissue paper)
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One of the Most Famous Japanese Erotic Woodcut, by the most important Japanese artist
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Katsushika Hokusai’s The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife (Tako to ama), created in 1814, remains one of the most provocative and culturally resonant prints in ukiyo-e history. This extraordinary shunga masterpiece depicts a young pearl diver (ama) entwined with a large octopus, blending eroticism, surrealism, and traditional Japanese folklore into a mesmerising composition of fluid lines and intense psychological tension. Hokusai, a towering pillar of Edo-period art whose career spanned decades, revolutionised landscape and genre art through works like The Great Wave off Kanagawa, yet this specific print explores the uncanny intersections of nature, desire, and mythology with unmatched audacity.
Centuries later, Hokusai’s surreal vision continues to reverberate deeply across global creative landscapes. The phantasmagoric fusion of human and marine forms directly inspired Western surrealists, notably André Breton and Salvador Dalí, who celebrated ukiyo-e for its uninhibited embrace of the subconscious. In literature, contemporary writers like Angela Carter and Haruki Murakami found echoes of Hokusai’s uncanny dualities in magical realism, utilising the shifting boundaries between beast and human to probe themes of isolation and longing. Ultimately, Hokusai transcends the confines of 19th-century Japan, remaining a timeless architect of the imagination whose tentacled masterpiece still challenges our perceptions of beauty and eroticism. I have official proof of authenticity such as vintage catalogs,
designer records,
or other literature sources and take full responsibility for any authenticity issues arising
from
misattribution
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