Museum Closure Blog: Museum Collections that don’t Rest even during the Closure #2

In this blog series, we’ve already introduced some of our collections that are displayed at different museums even during this period of closure. They were the Gold Seal, a national treasure, and items related to Kuroda Tadayuki, the second lord of the Fukuoka Clan. Today, we’d like to introduce “Picture Scroll of the Parade of Korean Diplomats in 1711”.

This picture scroll is currently displayed at the Kyushu Historical Museum, in an exhibition entitled “Korean Diplomatic Missions and Fukuoka.” This artifact was made to congratulate Tokugawa Ienobu (1662-1712) when he became a Shogun in 1711. The scroll depicts a parade of a Korean diplomatic mission sent by the King of Korea. There are three scrolls and all of them are about 40 meters in length when fully opened.

Out of the three scrolls, we only lent one for the exhibition. So in this blog, I’d like to introduce some scenes depicted in the Korean diplomatic mission heading to Edo Castle from the two remaining scrolls.

A senior envoy, who is the representative of the mission, is sitting on a float carried by Japanese people. A big parasol is held above his head to avoid the sun.

The parade is followed by an archer.

A diplomatic letter from the Korean king is stored inside a portable shrine-like float situated at the center of this drawing. This float is carried by the diplomatic mission themselves.

The secretary of the mission is riding on a horse and follows after them. 

Some Japanese also joins the parade as hosts. The person on horseback depicted at the center of this drawing is Amenomori Hoshu (1668-1755). He was the person in charge of hosting this mission. He was a Confucian scholar of the Tsushima Clan, and a specialist in the field of education and diplomatic relationship with Korea. He accompanied the Korean mission when they headed to Edo to congratulate Tokugawa Yoshimune, when he acquired the position of Shogun in 1719.

Today, we introduced drawings in the two scrolls, which depicts the Korean parade heading to Edo Castle. In the feature exhibition “Korean Diplomatic Missions and Fukuoka”, happening at the Kyushu Historical Museum, you can see the scroll depicting the same parade returning from Edo.

 

The exhibition will last until Sunday, February 14th. Please don’t miss it!