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22 January 2010

Minamoto no Yoritomo

 

Portrait of Shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo in court dress, holding sceptre and wearing sword. School of / style of Fujiwara no Takanobu (1142-1205). Japan, 14th century or later Photograph (of painting only). Original hanging scroll painting, ink, pigment and gold on silk, inscribed (the painting is a copy of another work). 145 x 88.3 cm (painting) © Trustees of the British Museum 1920, 0713, 0.1 Original purchased with the assistance of the National Art Collections Fund.

The inscription in the cartouche, top left, which clearly identifies Yoritomo, founder of the Kamakura Shogunate, has been used to confirm that he is indeed the subject of the portrait. Recent analysis of this scroll in Japan, however, suggests that this copy may have been made in the Edo period (1600-1868), and the identity of the original sitter is open to question.   When such details were less uncertain, this painting was described as conveying a “still impressive sense of a formidable personality, even in a copy” and this was said to be testimony to the incisiveness of the portraiture of its time. Renewed debate about the date and subject may not affect this judgement but if the subject were identified as someone of lesser importance than Yoritomo himself, it is legitimate to wonder whether his character would in due course be reinterpreted as less formidable.   Click here to see the latest information about this painting and here for its conservation and remounting in 1998 (part of a scheme funded by Japanese government agencies)

 
 
 

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