Name of Object:

Namban Folding Screen (Namban Byobu)

Location:

Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

Holding Museum:

National Museum of Ancient Art

Original Owner:

Tadao Takamisawa, António da Costa Carneiro, Portuguese ambassador in Japan

Current Owner:

Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga

Date of Object:

c.1593–1600

Artist(s) / Craftsperson(s):

Attributed to Kano Domi (known as Pedro Kano Gennosuke after his conversion to Christianity, born in Kyoto)

Museum Inventory Number:

1638; 1639 Mov

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Colour (tempera) on paper and gold leaf on silk; lacquered frame and metal

Dimensions:

H: 172.8 cm; l: 380.8 cm; depth 2 cm

Period / Dynasty:

Azuchi-Momoyama period

Workshop / Movement:

Kano School (Kanoha)

Type of object:

Furnishing that can be included in the Shoheiga category, meaning a large painted architectural surface, including folding screens. In this case, it is more specifically Byobu, meaning a painted folding screen.

Period of activity:

End of the 16th century, beginning of the 17th century

Place of production:

Japan

Description:

The Namban Byobu, of which there are more than 70 extant, are some of the most impressive visual testimonies to the way Japanese painters perceived the first Europeans to arrive in Japan. The arrival of the Portuguese in 1543 and their expulsion almost a century later in 1639, gave rise to the so called Namban Bijutsu artwork, a result of the meeting of the Japanese and European cultures.
A pair of six-fold painted screens, they both follow the most current theme of the Namban Byobu, depicting the arrival of the Portuguese in Japan. On the left, the screen depicts a great ship from Macao, or kurofune (“the black ship”), and on the right a procession, or Namban Gyoretsu, passing a Japanese street observed by curious inhabitants. Waiting for them are the Jesuits, whose church is built in the Japanese style with interior rooms that largely follow local models, such as the use of tatami to cover the floor or of shoji to divide the inner space. The daily life of the Jesuit mission is depicted in these byobu (biombo in Portuguese). The works convey their approach to “accommodation”, according to which special attention was paid to the European priests' and brothers' integration into Japanese society.
The procession is composed of a Captain-Major, standing underneath a state parasol surrounded by other officers, as well as sailors, African slaves, Indians and Malays. The ornaments worn by the aristocrats and rich merchants are visible and notable: gold chains, crucifixes and daggers. While the majority of the characters wear bombacha – large baggy trousers used in the East to protect them from mosquitoes, their doublets have buttons, which were unknown to the Japanese, who called them botan from the Portuguese botão. This in itself is an interesting example of linguistic appropriation as a result of newly acquired cultural habits.
These exotic objects, of which much care was taken, included Chinese folding-chairs, lacquered boxes, porcelain, bundles and bales of silk, Persian horses and caged animals. Their different places of origin were the result of Portuguese trade. By the 16th and 17th centuries Portugal had established trade routes along the coastline of the Indian Ocean, the Southern Seas and the China Sea. Some of the traders were born in Asia and many of them were the result of the progressive hybridism that characterised the lives of the Europeans in Asia during the period.

In around 1543, the Portuguese (or Namban-jin) arrived in Japan, and so began a period of rich cultural exchange. Similar to several other Namban objects, this pair of folding screens – made by artists from Nippon – is a unique visual document that relates to the Portuguese presence in Japan.

How date and origin were established:

Tadao Takamisawa attributed the paintings to Kano Domi based on stylistic grounds, and thematic and pictorial parallels with other folding screens and works executed by the Kano school of painting, including Kano Naizen's Namban Byobu, also in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga.

How Object was obtained:

Acquired in the 1930s by Tadao Takamisawa from a daimyo's (Great Lord) castle near Osaka, and later purchased by the Portuguese ambassador –António da Costa Carneiro – in Tokyo. Having belonged to the Ministry of Finance since 1952 it has been on permanent loan to the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon ever since.

Selected bibliography:

Okamoto, Y., The Namban Art of Japan. New York–Tokyo, 1972.
Sakamoto, M., “Namban Byobu (Southern Barbarian Screens)”, Nihon no bijustsu, No. 135, Tokyo, 1977.
Arte Namban, Lisbon, 1981.
Pinto, M., Mendes, H., Biombos Namban, Lisbon, 1988.
Arte Namban. Os Portugueses no Japão, Lisbon, 1990.

Additional Copyright Information:

Copyright images: Divisão de Documentação Fotográfica/ Instituto dos Museus e da Conservação,I.P.

Citation of this web page:

Alexandra Curvelo "Namban Folding Screen (Namban Byobu)" in "Discover Baroque Art", Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://baroqueart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;BAR;pt;Mus11_A;28;en

Prepared by: Alexandra CurveloAlexandra Curvelo

SURNAME: Curvelo
NAME: Alexandra

AFFILIATION: National Tile Museum, Lisbon

TITLE: Museum Curator

CV:
Alexandra Curvelo holds a PhD in Art History (Namban Art). She is honorary Associate Professor at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL), integrated member and member of the board of Centro de História de Além-Mar (CHAM) and is a Curator at the National Tile Museum in Lisbon.
Translation by: Alexandra CurveloAlexandra Curvelo

SURNAME: Curvelo
NAME: Alexandra

AFFILIATION: National Tile Museum, Lisbon

TITLE: Museum Curator

CV:
Alexandra Curvelo holds a PhD in Art History (Namban Art). She is honorary Associate Professor at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL), integrated member and member of the board of Centro de História de Além-Mar (CHAM) and is a Curator at the National Tile Museum in Lisbon.
Translation copyedited by: Mandi GomezMandi Gomez

Amanda Gomez is a freelance copy-editor and proofreader working in London. She studied Art History and Literature at Essex University (1986–89) and received her MA (Area Studies Africa: Art, Literature, African Thought) from SOAS in 1990. She worked as an editorial assistant for the independent publisher Bellew Publishing (1991–94) and studied at Bookhouse and the London College of Printing on day release. She was publications officer at the Museum of London until 2000 and then took a role at Art Books International, where she worked on projects for independent publishers and arts institutions that included MWNF’s English-language editions of the books series Islamic Art in the Mediterranean. She was part of the editorial team for further MWNF iterations: Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean Virtual Museum and the illustrated volume Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean.

True to its ethos of connecting people through the arts, MWNF has provided Amanda with valuable opportunities for discovery and learning, increased her editorial experience, and connected her with publishers and institutions all over the world. More recently, the projects she has worked on include MWNF’s Sharing History Virtual Museum and Exhibition series, Vitra Design Museum’s Victor Papanek and Objects of Desire, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt’s online publication 2 or 3 Tigers and its volume Race, Nation, Class.

MWNF Working Number: PT 31