Animals, Animals, Animals！
From the Edo-Tokyo Museum Collection

These signs were rooted in daily life as a unit ofmeasurement of year, month, time and direction.
[No.82-86]

Commentaries
Daimyō's procession
One of Edo's New Year's traditions was a daimyō’s(feudal lords) procession who went to greet the Shōgun
for the New Year. The higher ranked daimyō’s
processions were accompanied by a Kiba-tomo (aperson who accompanies a procession of daimyō onhorseback). [No.10-12]

Nishiki-e
Nishiki-e is the general term for polychrome woodblock
prints of ukiyo-e, which were established in the midEdo period in Japan. The prints are produced by a fourperson division of labour: the publisher, the painter, theengraver and the printer. The development of atechnique known as “register”, which corresponds totoday's “register marks” in printing, made it possible toproduce a wide variety of colours and mass production.

Utagawa Hiroshige (I)One of the most prominent ukiyo-e artists of the Edoperiod. He became a very popular artist for his
woodcuts of landscapes, and his work later influencedWestern painters such as Van Gogh and Monet.
Meisho Edo hyakkei (One Hundred Famous Views ofEdo), a compilation by Hiroshige, is highly regarded for
its excellent capture of the scenery and lifestyles of thepeople living in Edo.
[No.22, 23, 25, 27, 40, 62, 73, 78, 79]

Machi-inu (Town dogs)
Only a few dogs in the Edo period were kept by private
individuals; in cities, most were “town dogs”, whichwere taken care by townspeople. Town dogs lived off
food from the residents of tenements and shops, playedwith children and sometimes acted as a watchdog bybarking at strangers. They were recognized as amember of the community. [No.1, 25-28]

The Twelve Zodiac Animals
The twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac established inJapan are the rat (子), ox (丑), tiger (寅), rabbit (卯),dragon ( 辰 ), snake ( 巳 ), horse ( 午 ), sheep ( 未 ),monkey (申), rooster/chicken (酉), dog (戌) and boar(亥), and are a calendar system that originated in China.

Tiger
Tigers were not native to Japan, but they were widely
known through hearsay from China. Only few Japanese
had seen the actual thing, and as in this work theleopard was wrongly perceived as a tiger. Also leopard
were believed to be female tigers. In 1860, a leopard
imported to Yokohama became a spectacle in Edo.
[No.94-97]

Katagami (Nagaita Chūgata [Resist Dyeing Technique]
Stencil)

Katagami (Nagaita Chūgata [Resist Dyeing Technique]
Stencil) is a tool for Katazome, the Japanese traditional
method of dyeing fabrics. After placing Katagami(Nagaita Chūgata [Resist Dyeing Technique] Stencil) ona fabric and placing anti-staining glue over it, thefabric is dyed, and when the glue is washed away, thearea where the glue was placed remains white and thepattern appears. Throughout the Edo period, it wasused as a dyeing technique for the clothing of samuraifamilies and townspeople, and the technique remains
in use today. [No.112-116]

Hōsō-e (Prints used as Anti-Smallpox Charms)
During the Edo period, coloured prints in red became
popular. These were called Hōsō-e (Prints used as
Anti-Smallpox Charm), as smallpox was raged at thetime. In those days, smallpox was more likely to affectyoung children. When they fell ill, red paintings werepasted on the pillars of houses and other places to pray
for the disease to disappear. Animals were often
depicted in these type of paintings. [No.175-178]

Imado Dolls and Owari-ya
Imado dolls are clay figures produced in Imado, which
is located north of Asakusa, on the Sumida River coast.
Its history records dating from the Genroku period(1688-1704). They were produced using molds, fired
in a kiln, then coloured. Owari-ya is a family line of
Imado doll makers since the Edo period, who continued
to produce them until 1945. Imado dolls were sold assouvenirs in Asakusa and other places, and were widely
popular with the general public. [No.183-198][0427]