The restoration work of the national treasure "Genji Monogatari Emaki", which depicts the story of Murasaki Shikibu's Genji, has been completed over nine years and will be open to the public at the Tokugawa Art Museum in its possession from the 13th.
A part of the national treasure "Genji Monogatari Emaki" will be released, which was drawn in the latter half of the Heian period and is considered to be the oldest surviving picture scroll depicting the Genji Monogatari.
It is believed that "Genji Monogatari Emaki" was originally composed of 54 scenes, but there are 19 existing scenes, 15 of which are in the Tokugawa Art Museum in Nagoya.
It has been stored in a framed state for many years, but since the pain became severe, restoration work was carried out from 2012, 9 years ago, to return it to the original state of the scroll, which is more suitable for storage, and this time it is completed. Will be released on the occasion.
In the representative scene "Kashiwagi San", Mr. Hikaru Genji is depicted holding Kaoru, an unrighteous child born by his wife, Onna Sannomiya.
In "Azumaya Ni", a woman named Ukifune, who is tired of love, is comforted by another woman.
Until now, the words and pictures with the story were saved separately, but with this restoration work, the original appearance of these combined has been restored.
Also, this time, the work to smooth out the wrinkles, which had been done at the time of saving so far, was also done.
Daisuke Usuda, a curator of the Tokugawa Art Museum, said, "Emaki scrolls are essentially a continuum of reading words and then looking at pictures. I'm talking to you.
The special exhibition of "Genji Monogatari Emaki" will be from the 13th to the 12th of next month, with 8 scenes in the first half and the remaining 7 scenes from the 1st of next month in the second half.