Ukiyo-e: pictures of the Floating World
Images of everyday Japan, printed for popular consumption in the Edo period (1615-1868), they represent one of the …
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Japanese art & design: pictorial narrative
Traditional Japanese pictorial decoration is conceptual rather than realistic, and reads from right to left. One pi…
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Study Room resource: Japanese prints
This study room resource explores the art of ukiyo-e Japanese prints including the works of Utamaro, Hokusai, Hiros…
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Review of MA Paper Conservation: Japanese prints
As part of an MA in Paper Conservation, I studied traditional Japanese prints, known as ukiyo-e prints. These were …
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Collecting Japanese cloisonné enamels at the V&A
Collecting Japanese cloisonné enamels at the V&A
Japanese motifs & symbols: plants & flowers
Images used to decorate Japanese artefacts are often wonderfully simple and effective communicators of meaning. The images are usually not meant to be realistic, and may not even be in lifelike colours: flowers may be reduced to bare essentials, maybe as little as five petal shapes joined to a central circle.
Japanese export lacquer panel
This Japanese lacquer panel was almost certainly the top of a chest made around 1640 for the European market. It bears many striking similarities in subject, style and techniques to the Mazarin Chest, probably the single most important Japanese item in the collection of the V&A.
Japanese masks reading list
Recommended reading about Japanese Masks
120-plate Japanese helmet, 1700-1800
This extremely fine quality Japanese helmet is of the type known as suji-bachi (ridged bowl) and is made from 120 russet iron plates riveted vertically. The inscription inside the helmet reads 'Joshu (modern-day Ibaraki Prefecture) Suifu ju Yoshihide Saku'.
Donate to the Stained Glass Appeal
We are currently working on an exciting project to conserve and re-install the original stained glass on the landings of the Manfred and Lydia Gorvy Lecture Theatre. We need your help to raise £75,000 to bring these historical features back to their former glory for us all to enjoy.
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V&A 'Japanese Woodblock Prints' Postcard Book
This book of 16 postcards showcases Japanese prints from the V&A's collection of ukiyo-e.
Buy nowEvent - BSL Tour: Japanese Enamels - The Seven Treasures
Fri 22 June 2012 18:30
BSL TOUR: Enjoy this talk which looks at the art of cloisonné enamelling, one Japan’s most successful forms of manufacture and export.
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