12Jan. 25 Fri. 2019 No.12

Next Feature Exhibition

Celebrating Spring: Courtly Splendor of the Tokugawa Shogunal Family
Wednesday, January 2, 2019 to Sunday, March 3, 2019

Museum hours: 9:30 am–5:30 pm (until 7:30 pm on
Saturdays)
Last admission 30 minutes before closing.
Closed: January 7 (Mon), 28 (Mon)
February 4 (Mon), 12 (Tues), 18 (Mon), 25 (Mon)*Viewed with permanent exhibition admission.
Admission: General admission 600 yen, 65 and older
300 yen, see the museum's website for admission
prices for students and others.
Sponsors:Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Tokyo
Metropolitan Edo-Tokyo Museum, Tokugawa MemorialFoundation

5F Permanent Exhibition Area Feature Exhibition RoomBook Shelf (left), Shelf for Miniature Shrine (center),Black Shelf (right)(from Black Lacquered Doll Furnishing Set withScattered Pine, Arabesque and Peony Patterns inMaki-e )Tokugawa Memorial Foundation

Next Feature Exhibition

Kake-bukusa (Cover Cloth) with Bamboo andFowl in Embroidery on Crimson Silk Crepe
GroundTokugawa Memorial Foundation
Exhibition period: Tuesday, February 5 –Sunday, March 3Writing Table (from Black LacqueredDoll Furnishing Set with ScatteredPeony, Arabesque, Hollyhock andChrysanthemum Patterns in Maki-e )Hearing “celebrating spring” gives us a heartwarming feeling. Having weathered the coldof winter, we reach spring, which represents the start of a new year in Japan. It’s the season
that gives us the determination to move ahead with renewed feeling. This year, the annual
jointly-sponsored Feature Exhibition with the Tokugawa Memorial Foundation will focus
on spring, with themes of the spring as experienced by the Tokugawa Shogunal Family andthe elegance found in the ladies’ chambers of Edo Castle.
In Japan, many people associate spring with hanami cherry blossom viewing parties andHina-Matsuri, the doll’s festival for girls. Although they are now widely popular events, theywere originally customs of the noble society of the Imperial Court. From the Edo period,
this culture gradually began to permeate samurai society. The background for this was theTokugawa Shogunal Family and miyake residences in Kyoto and marriages with families ofregents and advisors. Marriage ties began to link Edo and Kyoto, which led to the culture ofthe Imperial Court entering the ladies’ chambers of Edo Castle. This also led to the steadyspread of events celebrating spring within the city of Edo.
This exhibition generally displays the spring events celebrated by the Tokugawa
Shogunal Family by month.

Mutsuki January in the old Japanese lunar calendar,
the Shogunal Family’s New YearThe year begins for many Japanese families with New Year’s ceremonies. For the Tokugawa
Shogunal Family, the New Year began with Ganjitsu Hairei the New Year’s Day worship forthe religious images at Tōshōgū Shrine. This is conveyed through a portrait of Tokugawa
Ieyasu titled Ganjitsu Hairei. Also, after exchanging greetings with their relatives, theShōgun and Midaidokoro (his wife) would prepare a meal to place before the ihai Buddhist
mortuary tablet of their ancestors, and then return to their seats to drink the wakamizu
first well water while facing the year’s lucky direction. This worship was held every day until
January 3.
The New Year also brings to mind the ozōni New Year’s dish for most Japanese people.
Ozōni differ across families and regions. This was the same for shogunal families. For theNew Year’s ceremony held in Omote outer Palace of Edo Castle, the Shōgun was given
the celebratory meal of suimono soup containing rabbit meat. In the past, the ancestors ofHouse of Tokugawa were treated to rabbit soup when they visited Shinano Province, andthe soup became a family custom to celebrate the New Year.
On their first visit to the castle in the New Year, daimyo and retainers were given usagi

Portrait of the "Great Deity of the East
Shining Light" (Tokugawa Ieyasu, a.k.a.
Tōshōgū) for New Year's Prayers
Tokugawa Memorial Foundation
Exhibition period: Wednesday, January 2 –Sunday, February 3no atsumono soup with rabbit. There was a total of 19 shogunal New Year’s ceremonies including
a visit to Momijiyama Tōshōgū Shrine. Whereas, in the ladies’ chambers, the ladies would
conduct okakizome New Year’s first writing on Square pieces of fancy paper or paper strips, as wellas oyomizome New Year’s first reading from their preferred selections from tales such as The Taleof Genji. We can catch a glimpse of the elegance of the ceremonies in the ladies’ chambers.

Kisaragi February, spring and the blooming of flowers

In modern Japan, it is now an established event to hold parties beneath the cherry blossoms inspring. In the Edo period, the shogunal families also had customs to admire the spring These ofplum and cherry trees.
In the shōgun families, the shogun himself would evoke spring’s flowers in waka poems andpaintings. His wife owned many furnishings decorated with plum and cherry blossoms. These
collection of works and furnishings can be said to embody the aesthetics of the flowers of spring.
In addition Tokugawa Yoshimune, the 8th Tokugawa Shōgun was known to maintain
Asukayama and the banks of the Sumida River for the commoners. Due to these stylisharrangements, these places have been famous for their cherry blossoms for generations.

Yayoi March, graceful Hina-dōgu

We would like you to focus on the hina-dōgu in this Feature Exhibition. March 3rd is HinaMatsuri, the doll’s festival for girls, and symbolizes spring for Japanese people. In the ladies’
chambers of Edo Castle, this event meant decorating with gorgeous hina dolls and hina-dōgu, theaccessories, arranged on a tiered display. This exhibition mainly features the hina-dōgu owned byAtsuhime (Princess Atsu), the wife of the 13th Shōgun Tokugawa Iesada, and Kazunomiya, wifeof the 14th Shōgun Tokugawa Iemochi.
The epilogue of the exhibition focuses on chiisakimono, small decorative goods that weredisplayed along with hina dolls for Hina Matsuri and at New Year’s events. The spring events
focusing on the New Year’s ceremonies of the Tokugawa Shogunal Family and the Edo Shogunate
have ties to modern times. The original Tokugawa Family passed down the delicate crafts known
as chiisakimono through the generations. The handwork of the Edo period was not limited tohina-dōgu, but also included silverwork and ivory doll creations. The chiisakimono admired bythe shogunal and daimyo families have been handed down as handicrafts in later eras.
We hope that through this exhibition focusing on spring events, viewers will savor the annual
functions and sense of the seasons of the Tokugawa Shogunal Family, the aesthetics of the season,and more. (Curator, Shinichi Saito)

EDO-TOKYO MUSEUM NEWSHiglights of the Permanent exhibition

Curator’s choice

Edo Zone, “The Beauty of Edo” Corner
Important Cultural Properties newly-designated in 2018

From the collection of the Edo-Tokyo Museum“Scroll Tray withBittersweet Vine andJapanese White-Eyes
in Maki-e ”
Wednesday, January 2, 2019 – Sunday, January 27, 2019
Materials that were newly-designated as Important Cultural Properties in 2018 will be opened
to the public. These works were created through exchanges with Edo painters, maki-eshi
lacquer artisans, and wealthy merchants.
Sakai Hōitsu, the creator of the rough sketches, started the Edo Rimpa style that added
the refinement and preferences of Edo to the Rimpa style developed by Tawaraya Sōtatsu ofKyoto and Ogata Kōrin. Hara Yōyūsai was a maki-eshi in the late Edo period who workedwith many sketches in the Edo Rimpa style.
The design features the scarlet seeds of theAsian bittersweet vine that are seen in autumn
and early winter on the edge of the stray, andJapanese white-eye birds on the branches. Theembossed gilt lacquer work of the gold and light
red vines, the seeds made with red coral, and thegold, silver, and lazulite of the white-eye birds
made with powder maki-e lacquer finish
are all made with advanced techniques.
The scroll stray made with a black lacquer
base has a design that evokes a two-layer scroll.
It was made through an order by the Morikawa
lumber dealer family prominent in the Edoperiod, which became known through anancestral letter. It is a refined lacquer work witha background of the network of the leaders ofculture in the Edo period developed mainly
during the Bunka-Bunsei period.
(Curator, Naoko Nishimura)“Kashima Shrine,images of catfish
extermination
throughout Japan”
On the night of October 2, 1855, the Great Ansei Earthquake unleashed tremendous
damage on Edo. In the months immediately following the earthquake, many tile block
prints known as namazu-e catfish pictures appeared on the market that depicted the themeof earthquakes and catfish. There was already a folk belief during the early Edo period thata catfish living underground caused earthquakes, and the Great Ansei Earthquake caused
rapid proliferation of it.
Let’s examine one of the prints. In the upper right of the print, a group of catfish ispainted undergoing an examination lined up in front of Kashima Shrine. It was believedthat earthquakes could be suppressed with spirit stones known as a kaname-ishi keystone.
These spirit stones were deified in two locations: Kashima Shrine in what is now Kashima
City, Ibaraki Prefecture, and Katori Shrine in what is now Katori City, Chiba Prefecture.
The image places the kaname-ishi on the head of the catfish that caused the earthquake in
Edo as it receives divine punishment, and is a typical example of the namazu-e depicting
the catfish, Kashima Shrine, and the kaname-ishi. The six catfish at the bottom of theprint depict the catfish believed to cause the earthquakes in the former Shinshu, Odawara,Echigo, Koshu, Osaka, and Kanto areas, and personify the large earthquakes including theGreat Ansei Earthquake that affected Edo. The group of catfish is awaiting judgment for thecrime of causing earthquakes, and are humorously depicted with excuses mixed with puns
coming from their mouths.
(Curator, Yoshiyuki Mashimo)

Important Cultural Properties
Scroll Tray with Bittersweet Vine andJapanese White-Eyes in Maki-eHara Yōyūsai, Sakai Hōitsu
1821

Special Exhibitions Closure Due to Renovation
Special Exhibitions (1st floor) is scheduled to close for facility renovation from October 1 (Sunday) 2017 until around April 2019.

EDO-TOKYO MUSEUM NEWS

Kashima Shrine, imagesof catfish extermination
throughout Japan1855