Battle Surcoat (Jinbaori) with Fan
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.The most suitable material for a durable, visibly striking, and warm battle surcoat was wool, which in the seventeenth century could not be produced in Japan and had to be imported from Portugal and the Netherlands. It arrived pre-dyed, most popularly in a deep scarlet derived from cochineal. This surcoat has an elongated shape and a decorative epaulet-like strip called a “sword support” (tachi-uke) sewn to the upper shoulder. The position of the shoulder piece indicates that this example is an early jinbaori, but the use of mid-eighteenth-century European silk reveals the piece to be a replacement, possibly to conceal use. At the center of the back is a cut-out and finely stitched white wool (rasha) appliqué in the shape of a Chinese-style military signal fan (tōuchiwa or gunbai). It appears to be only a decorative pattern, not a family crest.
Artwork Details
- 猩々緋羅紗地唐団扇模様陣羽織
- Title: Battle Surcoat (Jinbaori) with Fan
- Period: Edo period (1615–1868)
- Date: first half 17th century
- Culture: Japan
- Medium: Wool (rasha)
- Dimensions: 42 1/2 × 31 in. (108 × 78.7 cm)
- Classification: Costumes
- Credit Line: Lent by John C. Weber Collection
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art