KURUMA NO ZU 車図.

KURUMA NO ZU 車図 [“Illustrated Court Carriage Manual with Ritual Descriptions”].

1750. Illustrated manuscript on paper. One four-page & 15 double-page paintings in rich colors and two pen & brush illus. on one page. 25 folding leaves. 8vo (241 x 166 mm.), orig. semi-stiff wrappers, manuscript title-slip on upper cover, new stitching. [Japan]: 1750.

Our Kuruma no zu manuscript is richly illustrated with splendid depictions capturing the ceremonial ox-drawn carriages (gissha 牛車) used by the Japanese imperial court and aristocracy from the Heian through the Muromachi periods (794–1573). Our manuscript reflects the intellectual movement of yūsoku kojitsu 有職故実, which emerged in the 18th century as part of an effort by the ruling class to reinforce social stability through courtly precedent. Manuals like Kuruma no zu appealed to samurai scholars, wealthy literate commoners, and artisans seeking to establish cultural capital by studying the aesthetics and ethics of imperial tradition.

The book organizes carriages according to rank and occasion. Each description draws on a fixed vocabulary of components — ajiro (woven reed paneling), sode (decorated side curtains), tachiai-ita (interior viewing panels), kanamono (metal fittings), misu (bamboo blinds), shitabari (underlayers), goza (woven seat mats), and otō (sliding panels) — that signal a carriage’s function, status, and propriety. The accompanying color illustrations further render interior furnishings, family crests, and seasonal motifs such as birds, grasses, clouds, and decorative materials like gold, ox-hair, and lacquer.

A note in the front matter reveals that the illustrations were based on a copy produced by Hino Dainagon 日野大納言 — likely Hino Suketomo, a 13th–14th century Counselor General — whose drawings, the scribe notes, included “some details kept confidential.” The same note references the Saionji 西園寺, identifying some of the carriages as affiliated with this prominent later imperial collateral family.

On the final leaf, we find a note by Watarai Masami 度会正身 (or Hashimura Masanobu 橋村正身, 1714-71) stating that this text was first copied in “the seventh month of autumn in Kanpō 2” (1742), and that our manuscript was created from that earlier manuscript in “the winter of Kan’en 3” (1750), by the prominent artist Kinugawa Sachio 衣川幸緒 (1699-1753). Hashimura was the chief priest of the Ise shrine.

PROVENANCE: Beyond its content, Kuruma no zu bears rich evidence of transmission and antiquarian interest. On the first leaf, there is the seal of the shrine master Hashimura (Hashimura Biblio-Collection 橋村氏蔵書記). With the red ink stamps on the cover and final pages of the Seisō Bunko, a private collection of the Osaka merchant and bibliophile Ozu Hisatari 尾津久足 (1804–58). With additional ownership inscription of Maekawa Kiyoshi Collection 前川清記蔵, along with several of its seals.

Fine copy and rare. NIJL locates only two copies of this manuscript, one at Tokyo University and the other at the Tokyo National Museum.