The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife
| Japanese: Tako to ama (蛸と海女) | |
The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife
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| Artist | Hokusai |
|---|---|
| Year | 1814 |
| Type | woodblock print |
| Medium | paper |
| Dimensions | 19 cm × 27 cm (7.4 in × 10.5 in) |
The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife (蛸と海女 Tako to ama?, Octopus(es) and shell diver), also known as Girl Diver and Octopuses, Diver and Two Octopuses, etc., is a woodblock-printed design by the Japanese artist Hokusai. It is included in Kinoe no Komatsu (English: Young Pines), a three-volume book of shunga erotica first published in 1814, and has become Hokusai's most famous shunga design. Playing with themes popular in Japanese art, it depicts a young ama diver entwined sexually with a pair of octopuses.
Octopi and shell diver is the most famous image in Kinoe no Komatsu, published in three volumes from 1814. The book is a work of shunga (erotic art) within the ukiyo-e genre. The image depicts a woman, evidently an ama (a shell diver), enveloped in the limbs of two octopuses. The larger of the two mollusks performs cunnilingus on her, while the smaller one, his offspring, assists by fondling the woman's mouth and left nipple. In the text above the image the woman and the creatures express their mutual sexual pleasure from the encounter.
All designs in the publication are untitled; this design is generally known in Japanese as Tako to ama, translated variously into English. Richard Douglas Lane calls it Girl Diver and Octopi; Matthi Forrer calls it Pearl Diver and Two Octopi; and Danielle Talerico calls it Diver and Two Octopi. The open book measures 6½" × 8¾" (16.51 cm × 22.23 cm).
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