Owari Tokugawa family treasures to be showcased at Suntory Museum of Art

The Suntory Museum of Art in Tokyo’s Roppongi district is hosting an exhibition featuring the artistic treasures — paintings, swords and armor, tea and incense utensils, musical instruments, noh costumes, etc. — of The Tokugawa Art Museum (see boxed article below) in Nagoya, including “The Tale of Genji Illustrated Scrolls” (12th century) and “Hatsune Furnishings” (dated 1639), both of which are celebrated national treasures of Japan.

The Tokugawa Art Museum Collection:
Treasures of the Owari Tokugawa Family

Jul 3 (Wed) – Sep 1 (Sun), 2024

Suntory Museum of Art
(Roppongi, Tokyo)

*See outline below for details

Entitled, “The Tokugawa Art Museum Collection: Treasures of the Owari Tokugawa Family,” the exhibition is set to open on July 3, 2024.

The Tokugawa Art Museum (Nagoya)

The Tokugawa shogunate ruled Japan throughout the Edo period (1603-1868). During that time, the Owari Tokugawa Family, one of the three prominent branch families of the Tokugawa clan that produced shoguns, ruled the Owari domain (western part of current-day Aichi Prefecture), which included today’s Nagoya. The museum opened in 1935 as an institution to study and showcase the collection of artworks — including the “Sunpu Bequest,” which are items inherited from none other than Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), the founder of the shogunate — passed down in the daimyo (feudal lord) family.

“The Tale of Genji Illustrated Scrolls” (top photos), the earliest extant pictorial version of what is said to be the world’s first novel, is believed to have been produced about a century after Murasaki Shikibu, a lady of the Imperial court in the Heian period (8th-12th century), authored the original manuscript. In the exhibition, pictorial scenes from four out of 54 chapters of the novel — namely, Kashiwagi (ch. 36), Yokobue (ch. 37), Hashihime (ch. 45) and Yadorigi (ch. 49) — will go on view successively in four terms (see box).

“The Tale of Genji Illustrated Scrolls”
(Display schedule)

Kashiwagi (sect. III): Jul 3 – 15
Yokobue: Jul 17 – 29
Hashihime: Jul 31 – Aug 15
Yadorigi (sect. II): Aug 16 – Sep 1

The maki-e lacquerwares of the “Hatsune Furnishings” were nuptial furnishings for Princess Chiyo (Chiyohime), the eldest daughter of the third Tokugawa shogun Iemitsu, upon her marriage with Mitsumoto, the second lord of the Owari domain. According to The Tokugawa Art Museum, the design motif of the matching lacquerwares comes from a poem in chapter 23, entitled “Hatsune” (The Warbler’s First Song), of “The Tale of Genji.” The museum says the furnishings represent “the finest example of the decorative lacquer technique of maki-e  in Japan.”

Other items to go on display include: a tachi (long sword) known as “Tsuda Totoumi Nagamitsu” (13th century), a designated national treasure; a wakizashi (literally, side-inserted sword) known as “Monoyoshi-sadamune,” a designated important cultural property; and an Oribe ware tea bowl named “Fuyugare” (17th century), also a designated important cultural property.

The exhibition runs through Sept. 1, 2024.