Lifting the kimono on Japanese erotic art - in pictures

Torii Kiyonaga – detail taken from Sode no maki (Handscroll for the Sleeve), c1785 Photograph: The Trustees of the British Museum

Nishikawa Sukenobu – sexual dalliance between man and geisha, c1711-16
Photograph: The Trustees of the British Museum

Kawanabe Kyōsai – detail of one of three comic shunga paintings, 1871-1889 Photograph: Israel Goldman collection

Kitagawa Utamaro – Lovers in the upstairs room of a teahouse, from Utamakura (Poem of the Pillow) c1788
Photograph: The Trustees of the British Museum

Kitagawa Utamaro – Fancy free type (Uwaki no so), from the series Ten Types in the Physiognomic Study of Women (Fujin sogaku juttai), c1792-3
Photograph: The Trustees of the British Museum

Hosoda Eishi – Young woman dreaming of The Ise Stories, early 19th century
Photograph: The Trustees of the British Museum

A closeup of Hosoda Eishi's Young woman dreaming
Photograph: The Trustees of the British Museum