Pictures of Hell
Illustrated Hell of Torment is a color album of paintings by Itō Seiu depicting women caught in scenes of punishment, violence, disaster, captivity, and physical peril. The ten illustrated plates range across historical and fantastic settings, including public punishment, attacks by animals, warfare, mechanical restraint, storms, architectural collapse, and other forms of bodily danger. Rather than functioning solely as a bondage album, the work situates restraint and torment within Seiu’s broader visual interest in historical suffering, spectacle, catastrophe, and the endangered female body.
Research notes
The cover identifies Itō Seiu (伊藤晴雨) as the artist and gives the title 責め地獄図絵. It also contains wording indicating an association with a collection at Shimoda in Izu, but the supplied 11-page scan does not contain a colophon or other page that securely establishes a publisher or publication date. Those fields are therefore left null. The scan consists of the illustrated cover followed by ten color plates.
