Which ukiyo-e artist created the print The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife?

Katsushika Hokusai created the print The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife.

The design is a famous example of shunga, an erotic branch of Japanese woodblock art. It appeared in Hokusai’s 1814 illustrated book Kinoe no Komatsu, whose title is often translated as Young Pine Saplings. The image shows a woman entwined with octopus-like creatures in a fantastical scene drawn from maritime legend and erotic imagination.

Although the print is now one of Hokusai’s best-known images, it represents only one part of his career. Hokusai produced landscapes, illustrated books, historical and legendary scenes, animals, studies of movement, and many other subjects.

The title is sometimes treated as if it described a conventional narrative painting. It is more accurately the commonly used English title of a shunga design. The work’s fame also reflects later international interest in Japanese art, even though its original Edo-period context was very different from modern museum presentation.