The Edo-Tokyo Museum is currently holding an exhibition of palanquins from the Edo period. This coincides with the exhibition of the famous Atsuhime's palanquin at the Sackler Museum in Washington D.C.
This exhibition will display palanquins used in the Edo period, particularly for women. These palanquins of the Edo period go by the names such as “Kago”, “Koshi”.
Palanquins for women had never been collected and displayed together before until this exhibition. This in spite of the fact that they are also of a large size and artistically outstanding. Ten palanquins, including five from the Edo-Tokyo museum collection, will be displayed in this exhibition.
Not surprisingly, the owners of these palanquins were exalted persons. Parades of these palanquins used to symbolize their owner’s power. This was experienced in all the castle towns throughout the country. However, Edo had much larger numbers of palanquins and the parade of these palanquins is not comparable with the ones at the provincial castle towns.
I've been to the Edo-Tokyo Museum back in 1995. It is an impressive museum. At the end of the exhibit, they take you to modern day Japan, including WWII. It is very dramatic and pulls no punches. The gentleman who toured the museum with me was quite taken with the display. He lived through the war and the reconstruction.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I have never been to the museum but I would love to visit it someday. That is my goal as I love history.
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