A daimyo

One of the highlights of the so-called Heriot collection of Japanese art, acquired by Te Papa in 2016, is this Yamato-e - classically styled painting on silk - apparently of a wealthy aristocrat, perhaps a daimyō or 'lord', but with the head of rat. Whether it refers to a specific figure cannot be determined, but its design was unlikely to be insulting. This is a sophisticated work, carefully created, not a frivolous object or printed ephemera, and the figure itself adopts the formal dress and conventional pose of aristocratic portrait paintings and scuptures. Representations of anthropomorphic animal figures had a long, respectable history in Japan, featuring in early emakimono hand scrolls like the spirited, whimseical animal tales of the Chōjū-giga, attributed to Toba Sōjō (1053-1140). Allusive animal images also populate the zodiacal cycles of the calendar. The rat, for example, was associated with Daikoku, the god of wealth. Depictions of Daikoku would have been displayed in tokonoma (alcoves) on rat days, months or years of the calendar cycles used during the Tokugawa period (1603-1868). Our sitter looks remarkably stately, affluent and well fed. His striped tatami mat makes a happy contrast to Kuniyoshi's Lord En'ya, seated on a white cotton quilt and about to perform the infinitely grimmer task of seppuku or ritual disembowelment (Te Papa 2016-0008-37).

Source: David Bell and Mark Stocker, 'Rising sun at Te Papa: the Heriot collection of Japanese art', Tuhinga, 29 (2018), https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/document/10608

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art   May 2019