New Year Special Display:
Hatsune Maki-e Lacquer Trousseau
National Treasure from the Tokugawa Art Museum
Exhibition period:
1 January (Sun) – 29 January 2023 (Sun)
Venue:
Cultural Exchange Exhibition Hall, Room 9
Introduction:
The New Year: a time for new things. New clothes, new resolutions, and perhaps even a new chapter in life. All these come together in our annual New Year Special Display of the Hatsune Maki-e Lacquer Trousseau, a National Treasure on loan from the Tokugawa Art Museum. This spectacular trousseau is an example of a set of furnishings that would have been created specially for a princess in the Edo period on the occasion of her marriage. Decorated with motifs from the “Hatsune” (The First Warbler) chapter of the Heian-period narrative The Tale of Genji, this particular trousseau followed Princess Chiyohime to her new home. In this twelfth edition of our annual exhibition, we present three items from the Hatsune Trousseau: a table, a box for calligraphy paper, and a large letter box depicting scenes from the “Kochō” chapter of The Tale of Genji. Supplementing these are trousseau items from the Nanbu clan, who governed the Morioka Domain during the Edo period.
Exhibition Highlights
ⓒ Tokugawa Art Museum Image Archives/DNPartcom
National
Treasure
Hatsune maki-e lacquer table
1639
Tokugawa Art Museum
This is a table for reading and writing, with guards on both ends to stop pens from rolling off. The women who actually used it may have given it a different name: in nyōbō-kotoba, jargon used by women of the court and in service of the shogun, tables were called “oshimazuki.”
ⓒ Tokugawa Art Museum Image Archives/DNPartcom
National
Treasure
Hatsune maki-e lacquer box for calligraphy paper
1639
Tokugawa Art Museum
This is a box for calligraphy paper, upon which poetry would be written. A cord, usually red and tasseled, would run through the clasps and knot over the lid to fasten it. Like other items in the Hatsune trousseau, this box—despite its small size—is finely inscribed with words from its namesake poem.
ⓒ Tokugawa Art Museum Image Archives/DNPartcom
National
Treasure
Kochō maki-e lacquer letter box
1639
Tokugawa Art Museum
This is a box for storing letters. Instead of using it as intended, people would occasionally send their correspondence with the box included. The Hatsune trousseau contains three types of letter boxes, two of which are longer than this box, and one which is fairly short in comparison. Unlike the rest of the trousseau, this box depicts the “Kochō” (Butterflies) chapter of The Tale of Genji, instead of the preceding “Hatsune” chapter.