Page 255 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

139 • These recently discovered screens Tokyo residence of the branch of the
Scenes of a Festival in Edo are here displayed publicly for the ruling Tokugawa family from Kii. The
Seventeenth century first time. They depict a festival, per- compounds of the other two primary
Pair of six-panel screens; ink, color, haps one associated with the Edo Tokugawa branch families, those from
and gold on paper branch of the Hie Shrine (see cat. 136). Owari and Mito, share the middle of
7
Each 160 x 350 (63 x 137 /s) The festival is meticulously described, the left screen. Given the dominance
Private Collection, Kyoto with the focus on the portable shrines of the Kii residence in this pair of
carried through the streets of the festival screens, perhaps it is not too
newly founded city of Edo. These farfetched to speculate that they were
screens are among the earliest, if not the result of a commission by that
the earliest, known representations family.
of Edo. They predate the pair in the Although these screens have yet to be
National Museum of Japanese History, thoroughly researched, they probably
Chiba, which shows a much more
expansive and developed city. In this date to the middle of the seventeenth
century and may have been produced
pair the shogun's Edo Castle (top of by artists of the Kano or Sumiyoshi
far right panel, left screen) is not par- school. RTS
ticularly large or impressive. Indeed
the dominant complex is the massive
one in the middle of the right screen,
identified by an attached label as the