Utamaro: Koi no Hutosao

A numbered scholarly edition — copy 569 of 1,500 — examining Utamaro's erotic shunga album "Koi no Hutosao" (literally, the bold strokes of love) within the full context of his erotic print production. Text by Marco Fagioli, printed in Florence in July 1977 by Tipografia Nazionale Editore, with text and photographs copyright Marco Fagioli. The book is bilingual throughout, Italian and English in parallel columns.

Fagioli's argument is careful and scholarly: he situates the Koi no Hutosao within the broader Ukiyo-e shunga tradition, examines the problems of attribution and chronology that make Utamaro's erotic work difficult to catalogue systematically, and provides a full catalogue of erotic books illustrated by Utamaro alongside an extensive bibliography. The color plates reproduce the prints with accuracy; the endpapers are a textured Japanese-style paper.

The cover carries a reproduction of the image that makes this album famous in the West — two figures in an interior, the line of the striped kimonos rendered with extraordinary precision. The back cover shows a second plate from the series.