Masterpieces from The Museum of the Imperial Collections on view in Kagawa

A special exhibition featuring Edo-period painter Ito Jakuchu’s series “Doshoku Sai-e (Colorful Realm of Living Beings),” a designated national treasure, and other artistic masterpieces of The Museum of the Imperial Collections, Sannomaru Shozokan* (Tokyo) is now running at The Kagawa Museum in Takamatsu (prefectural capital of Kagawa).

Masterpieces from The Museum of the Imperial Collections, Sannomaru Shozokan
Beauty Connecting the Imperial Court and Kagawa

Apr 20 (Sat) – May 26 (Sun), 2024

The Kagawa Museum
(Takamatsu, Kagawa Pref.)

*See outline below for details

Entitled “Beauty Connecting the Imperial Court and Kagawa,” the exhibition (organized by The Yomiuri Shimbun, a national newspaper publisher, and other entities, and supported by the Tsumugu Project) showcases premodern and modern paintings, as well as modern sculptures and crafts — 94 items in total — closely associated with Kagawa, a prefecture located on the island of Shikoku.

*Sannomaru Shozokan: In 1989, the first year of the Heisei era, the then Emperor (currently, Emperor Emeritus) and his mother Empress Kojun (1903-2000) donated the artistic treasures — more than 6,000 paintings, calligraphy, craft, etc. — that had been passed down in the Imperial Household up until Emperor Showa’s time (1926–89) to the Japanese government. Sannomaru Shozokan was opened in the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace in November 1993 to store, preserve and exhibit these items. The collection gradually grew as other members of the Imperial Household left or donated their precious belongings to the state, the number of items held by the museum now reaching about 20,000. The museum has been closed since 2019 for renovations to expand its storage and exhibition space, but will partially open a newly built facility for the upcoming exhibition. Renovations are due to be completed in 2026.

Two paintings — “Rooster, Sunflowers and Morning Glories” and “Herbaceous Peonies and Butterflies” — from Jakuchu’s “Doshoku Sai-e” (a series of 30 paintings) are currently on display, juxtaposed with “Flowering Plants” (dated 1764), a painting rendered by Jakuchu over four sliding door panels of Kotohira-gu shrine in Kotohira, Kagawa Pref. Yukako Kubomi, a Kagawa Museum curator, says Jakuchu painted the colorful “Rooster” — standing on one leg and looking back by carefully observing the fowls he kept in his own yard.

A round-shaped tray on display by lacquer artist Masami Isoi — an Important Intangible Cultural Property Holder (Living National Treasure) of the decorative kinma technique who hailed from Takamatsu and passed away in September 2023 — is adorned with silhouettes of pine trees in dawn light. Kubomi asserts that the work is uniquely Isoi’s own. “It looks simple, but is made with a very high level of skill. The outer edges of the silhouettes are drawn sharply. Only the kinma technique will allow such an outcome.”

The exhibition runs through May 26.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun and other sources)