The Honzo zufu (Illustrated book of medicinal herbs) is a botany work owed to Iwasaki Tsunemasa (1786-1842), a Japanese botanist, zoologist, and entomologist, as well as a Samourai.
Firemen played a vital role in Edo Period cities regularly devastated by fires. The rudimentary material conditions of their interventions led them to be perceived as authentic heroes ready to sacrifice themselves for the community.
In our day the 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century liturgical robes (kesa) of Chinese Buddhist monks are far more rare than their Japanese matches. Only the most prestigious pieces, belonging to the more formal category of the sogyari (kesa with nine to twenty-five strips), have come down to us.
Under the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar (1556-1605), Babur’s grandson, the Turko-Mongol-style costumes worn during the reigns of Babur and his son Humayun, unsuited for India’s climate, began to resemble traditional Indian garments.
Ceremonial kimono with a decor of cranes and pines under the snow
In the Edo period the kimonos that children wore since birth and up to the age of three were called hitotsumi. This kimono is a boy’s garment from the late 19th century.
This remarkably well-preserved helmet has kept its rear-peak, its throat piece, and is above all associated with its half-mask (mempo). On each of its wings It bears the Wakizaka family coat of arms.
Decorated in a style combining the gorgeousness of the gold with the delicacy of the draughtsmanship, this writing-box illustrates the eminently pictorial aspect of lacquerwork in the early 18th century.
The large horizontal “goggle eyes” of this statuette led it to be called “dogu with snow goggles”, their shape recalling the protections the Inuit population used against the reverberation of the sun on the snow. For others, they are closed eyelids involving these figures in the world of the dead.
