Chokugaku-mon Gate, Zojoji Temple, Shiba

Category

Library Item

Item no

15120

Title

Chokugaku-mon Gate, Zojoji Temple, Shiba

Description

The interior of the Chokugakumon Gate of Yushoin Mausoleum. Between the main and front pillars, the very ornate gate is decorated with carvings of Chinese phoenix inlaid with gold. It is built in the 'Kirizuma' (gabled roof) style with 'Karahafu' (undulating barge-board) in front and back, and a copper roof. Many copper lanterns were installed along the see-through fence on both sides of the gate. One of these lanterns is visible on the right-hand side of this photograph. The complex decoration of the gate is underlined by the use of green, yellow, pink, red and blue paint, applied by hand.

Artist / maker

von Stillfried-Ratenicz, Franz

Date

1881

Size

19.5 x 24 cm

Type

Photograph

Location

Art and Design Library

The Yushoin Mausoleum was the mausoleum of the seventh Shogun Tokugawa Ietsugu (1709-1716), who became shogun at the age of three. This structure was part of the Buddhist temple of Zojoji in the neighbourhood of Shiba, Tokyo. This gate is one of the only structures of the temple that survived an American air raid in 1945.

This item is part of a collection of prints from the studio of Baron Franz von Stillfried-Ratenicz, an Austrian photographer practising in Japan in the late 1870's. Von Stillfried ran a studio in Yokohama at the same time as his brother Raimund, who was also known as 'Baron Stillfried'. This caused a great deal of confusion with the local residents and visitors to Japan in the Meiji Period, and with art historians today.

This album, which dates from 1879-83, comprises 67 separate mounted prints presented in a lacquerware box. Albums of this kind were popular among foreign tourists, who frequently selected the individual prints they wished to include from the studio's collection. Many of these albumen prints were hand tinted. This was a laborious process for which von Stillfried employed, at the height of his success, a substantial number of Japanese workers.

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Related subjects

Architecture > Architectural features > Gates

Places > Asia > Japan

Religion > Religious facilities > Buddhist temples