Manuscript scroll on paper entitled “Kujirakata shosha zue” [“Genuine copied illustrations of the whaling techniques...
Scroll (273 x 13,760 mm.). At end (in trans.): “All the images are of the whaling at Taiji…April 1857, Tennojiya Shinsuke owned.”
A remarkable, long, and vividly rendered whaling scroll, from Wakayama Prefecture, depicting the whaling activities in unusual detail, of the famous town of Taiji and its bay (“Taiji ura”), the site of the annual dolphin slaughter, featured in the 2009 Oscar-winning documentary The Cove. Taiji has long been known as a whaling town, and its history is essentially the history of whaling in Japan. In the 17th century, whalers of the town developed a series of more sophisticated... More