Ochiai of Rotakudo
A framed porcelain panel, depicting The Grand Spring Festival in Nikko.
Signed with a rectangular seal on the front Tokyo Rotakudo
The reverse inscribed “Made by Ochiai of Rotakudo, a dealer of Satsuma and ceramics at no.10 Shinja-cho, Kyobashi-ku, Tokyo.”
Height: 29.8cm, width: 48cm (including original wood frame)
Meiji period, with original label to reverse dated 1904
This festival (Shunki Reitaisai) is celebrated in two major events. The first being the Hyakumono-Zoroe Sennin Gyoretsu, which is a procession of over 1000 warriors dressed in traditional samurai costume who parade through the streets in front of the Tosho-gu shrine. The procession commemorates the transfer of the spirit of Tokugawa Ieyasu from where he died in Shizuoka Prefecture to his final resting place in accordance with his will.
The procession begins on the second day of the festival (following the Yabusame Competition the previous day) at the Otabusho Shrine near the Shinkyo Bridge, which is part of the Futarasan-Jinja shrine. The procession includes samurai warriors, Shinto priests on horseback, and three portable shrines (mikoshi) that carry three spirits, including that of the deified Tokugawa Ieyasu, the other two portable shrines house the spirits of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and that of Minamoto no Yoritomo (founder and first shogun of the Kamakura Shogunate). This festival continues to be enacted to this day.
£POA
