Kojima Takanori

Category

Library Item

Item no

18984

Title

Kojima Takanori

Artist / maker

Kano, Shosen'in Masanobu

Date

1845

Size

28.8 x 14.5 cm

Type

Ink and colour; Mixed media

Location

Art and Design Library

From an album of miniature hanging scrolls:

Kojima Takanori was a loyal follower of Emperor Go-Daigo of the Southern Court during the wars of the 14th century and he appears in the warrior chronicle, Taiheiki. When the emperor was taken captive, Kojima secretly followed and stripped away the bark a cherry tree in order to carve an ancient Chinese poem into the wood. This was a coded message that help was near, for the emperor to see when he passed.

This album comprises 76 pages of miniature paintings (and some calligraphies), the majority by artists of the Kano lineage, who worked for the ruling military regime. Each work is signed and sealed in miniature, and has been given a full brocade mounting as if it were a hanging scroll.

Information provided by Dr Rosina Buckland (National Museum of Scotland).

This album was donated to Edinburgh City Libraries by Marie Ferguson Dyer in honour of her father Henry Dyer. Dyer was a Scottish engineer who became the first Principal of the Imperial College of Engineering in Tokyo in 1872.

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