The Fanciful Eight Views in Military Love Affairs (Furyu budo iro-bakkei)

This 1705 sumizuri-e is a single illustration from a woodblock-printed book titled Furyu Budo Iro-Bakkei (The Fanciful Eight Views in Military Love Affairs), an example of the genre of comic and erotic illustrated books that Edo publishers issued in large numbers during the early eighteenth century. The title plays on the established convention of the hakkei (eight views), originally a Chinese landscape category, by transposing it into the realm of romantic and martial misadventure. Kiyonobu's contribution to such books was substantial: alongside his actor prints he designed many bound volumes of monochrome line illustration on stories drawn from the demimonde and the warrior class. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this individual leaf from the book within its collection of ehon (illustrated book) materials.