Utamakura (, "poem[s] of the pillow") is the title of a 12-print illustrated book of sexually explicit shunga pictures, published in 1788. The print designs are attributed to the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Kitagawa Utamaro, and the book's publication to Tsutaya Jūzaburō. Background Ukiyo-e art flourished in Japan during the Edo period from the 17th to 19th centuries, and took as its primary subjects courtesans, kabuki actors, and others associated with the "floating world" lifestyle of the pleasure districts. Alongside paintings, mass-produced woodblock prints were a major form of the genre. In the mid-18th century full-colour prints became common, printed using a large number of woodblocks, one for each colour. Kitagawa Utamaro (–1806) began designing prints in the 1770s; made his name in the 1790s with his bijin ōkubi-e ("large-headed pictures of beautiful women") portraits, focusing on the head and upper torso. He experimented with line, colour, and printing techniques to bring out subtle differences in the features, expressions, and backdrops of subjects from a wide variety of class and background. In Edo (modern Tokyo) shunpon albums of prints developed in the 18th century. The books were made of typically twelve prints printed on one side and folded inward, with the edges glued to the adjacent prints and the whole held together with silk thread wrapped around stiff paper covers. The books were of high-quality paper, printed in relatively low printruns, and from the 1770s usually used full colour with expensive pigments and other lavish printing techniques. Sometimes they came with additional pages of text. Description and analysis The prints are unsigned, but they are attributed to Kitagawa Utamaro ( – 1806). The preface is signed with the pen name Honjo no Shitsubuka ("Profligate of Soggy Honjo"); amongst those suspected to have written it are the writer and poet Tōrai Sanna (1744–1810) and the poet (1740–1800). The prints are followed by two stories told over two spreads of text. The stories and prints each stand independent of one another. Utamakura (, "poem pillow") is a classical Japanese rhetorical concept in which poetical epithets are associated with place names. Utamaro takes advantage of the makura ("pillow") portion to suggest intimate bedroom activity; the terms utamakura and makura-kotoba ("pillow word[s]") are used throughout the preface. Unlike other illustrated books of the time, Utamakura is devoid of accompanying text, and employs luxurious techniques such as embossing, the dusting of mica for a glittering effect,