Amazing Folding Screen and Tea Ceremony Wares for Spring

Just like the Mitsui family with their own museum, fellow mega-enterprise Sumitomo owns a gigantic collection of artistic masterpieces, many of which are displayed at the twin Sen-oku Hakuko museums in Kyoto and Tokyo. This spring sees the latter put on a seasonal exhibition that sees some of the museum's finest paintings on folding screens put on show alongside both newly acquired and long-treasured tea utensils. The first part of the exhibition, which runs until March 26, focuses on Edo-era tagasode (literally 'whose sleeves?') screens that depict kimonos and other traditional Japanese garments hung over clothing racks or folding screens in a room, never revealing the wearer, and other paintings that zoom in on the lives of commoners. The second part (March 30-May 7), meanwhile, turns back the clock to the 16th-century Azuchi-Momoyama period with spring-themed screens and the aforementioned tea bowls. But the real highlight here is the early-Edo 'Nijojo Gyoko Zubyofu', a six-screen masterpiece on display throughout the exhibition period. It depicts an Imperial procession approaching Kyoto's Nijo Castle, where they are to be received by the shogun and his loyal daimyo lords, and is supremely detailed in its depiction of all participating characters – from royal to peasant.