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Lot Essay
Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537–1598) had grand ambitions. Vain and ambitious—some say unhinged—the aging despot had unified his country and was now reaching for an empire. His plan was to conquer Ming China and install a Japanese emperor in Peking (now Beijing), which required passage of Japanese troops up through the Korean peninsula. When the Koreans refused passage, he built a castle in northern Kyushu as a staging ground and general headquarters for his army, and twice went to war in Korea—in 1592 and again in 1597, the so-called Imjin War. Although the Japanese did occupy Seoul on the first invasion, the Chinese inevitably came to the support of their tributary. The Japanese invasions failed, and Hideyoshi died in September 1598, after issuing orders to retreat so as to avoid ignominious defeat.
Still, there was one stunning success during the second campaign, a legendary battle that is immortalized on this pair of screens.
Hideyoshi himself never went to Kyushu to direct the second campaign. He was at Osaka castle playing with an elephant delivered as a gift by the Spanish, acquiring tea vessels, expanding his Fushimi compound and preparing for his great cherry-blossom party to be held at Daigo-ji Temple. In 1597, Kato Kiyomasa, Konishi Yukinaga and Nabeshima Naoshige returned to Korea with their armies to join the small rear guard concentrated in the Busan area. Ming forces were redeployed, however, and the Japanese lost momentum, taking refuge in fortresses along the southern coast. Hideyoshi ordered additional troops, totaling over 140,000 men altogether, to resume a full-scale war. Then, in late January 1598, a major Chinese-Korean offensive caught the Japanese unaware in their fort in Ulsan harbor and nearly succeeded. However, a few weeks later, in early February, Nabeshima Naoshige suggested a night attack. Kuroda Nagamasa agreed and their heroic defense turned near defeat by the allied Ming and Joseon armies into a spectacular (if short-lived) victory for the Japanese, with heavy Chinese losses. That victory a is pictured in great detail on our pair of screens.
The model for this composition was a now-lost screen said to have been painted by an artist that Nabeshima Naoshige brought with him, no doubt intended as propaganda in the guise of historical documentation. Several other copies are known. The 1997 exhibition catalogue Sengoku kassenzu byobu no sekai (The world of screens of the Warring States period) at the Wakayama Prefectural Museum illustrates the following: 1) A Meiji-period copy dated 1887 in the Nabeshima Chokokan in Saga City (no. 21 ); 2) Mid-Edo Screens in a private collection in Kyoto (no. 22); 3) A set of 14 fragments of mid-Edo paintings in the Saga Prefectural Library (fig 5); and 4) A single screen assembled from parts of two screens in the Fukuoka Prefectural Museum.
On the right screen, the Japanese, their gunners armed with modern, smooth-bore muskets, lie in wait on one side of the mountain, closest to the viewer. Matchlock muskets had been introduced in the sixteenth century by the Portuguese and were soon copied by Japanese gunsmiths. Perhaps because they were “foreign” in origin, muskets were never favored by the elite, who use swords. A seen here, muskets were confined to the ashigaru, or footsoldiers, at the bottom of the samurai hierarchy. Continental troops, armed only with bows, their weapon of choice, and wearing long, gray robes, are deployed in neat formations on the far side of the frozen, snow-covered river. Their cavalry has begun to cross the river. The stage is set.
On the left screen, we see the dramatic rout of the retreating continental army. Brave Japanese soldiers plunge down the impossibly steep mountain slope, taking the enemy by surprise. The battlefield comes to life here. Wielding deadly samurai swords, the Japanese efficiently slaughter their enemy, red blood gushing from severed heads. Stragglers flee in chaotic disarray. This screen is teeming with gruesome vignettes. Hideyoshi demanded that noses of dead enemy soldiers, pickled in salt, be sent back to Japan as proof of fighting. They were interred in the huge, grassy burial mound misnamed Mimizuka (“Ear mound”), probably Kyoto’s least visited tourist attraction, near what is now the Kyoto National Museum. The legacy of Hideyoshi’s war in Korea, Japan’s first attempt to become a global power, was the justification for Japan’s annexation of Korea in the 20th century, on the one hand, and the foundation of Korean nationalism on the other.
Still, there was one stunning success during the second campaign, a legendary battle that is immortalized on this pair of screens.
Hideyoshi himself never went to Kyushu to direct the second campaign. He was at Osaka castle playing with an elephant delivered as a gift by the Spanish, acquiring tea vessels, expanding his Fushimi compound and preparing for his great cherry-blossom party to be held at Daigo-ji Temple. In 1597, Kato Kiyomasa, Konishi Yukinaga and Nabeshima Naoshige returned to Korea with their armies to join the small rear guard concentrated in the Busan area. Ming forces were redeployed, however, and the Japanese lost momentum, taking refuge in fortresses along the southern coast. Hideyoshi ordered additional troops, totaling over 140,000 men altogether, to resume a full-scale war. Then, in late January 1598, a major Chinese-Korean offensive caught the Japanese unaware in their fort in Ulsan harbor and nearly succeeded. However, a few weeks later, in early February, Nabeshima Naoshige suggested a night attack. Kuroda Nagamasa agreed and their heroic defense turned near defeat by the allied Ming and Joseon armies into a spectacular (if short-lived) victory for the Japanese, with heavy Chinese losses. That victory a is pictured in great detail on our pair of screens.
The model for this composition was a now-lost screen said to have been painted by an artist that Nabeshima Naoshige brought with him, no doubt intended as propaganda in the guise of historical documentation. Several other copies are known. The 1997 exhibition catalogue Sengoku kassenzu byobu no sekai (The world of screens of the Warring States period) at the Wakayama Prefectural Museum illustrates the following: 1) A Meiji-period copy dated 1887 in the Nabeshima Chokokan in Saga City (no. 21 ); 2) Mid-Edo Screens in a private collection in Kyoto (no. 22); 3) A set of 14 fragments of mid-Edo paintings in the Saga Prefectural Library (fig 5); and 4) A single screen assembled from parts of two screens in the Fukuoka Prefectural Museum.
On the right screen, the Japanese, their gunners armed with modern, smooth-bore muskets, lie in wait on one side of the mountain, closest to the viewer. Matchlock muskets had been introduced in the sixteenth century by the Portuguese and were soon copied by Japanese gunsmiths. Perhaps because they were “foreign” in origin, muskets were never favored by the elite, who use swords. A seen here, muskets were confined to the ashigaru, or footsoldiers, at the bottom of the samurai hierarchy. Continental troops, armed only with bows, their weapon of choice, and wearing long, gray robes, are deployed in neat formations on the far side of the frozen, snow-covered river. Their cavalry has begun to cross the river. The stage is set.
On the left screen, we see the dramatic rout of the retreating continental army. Brave Japanese soldiers plunge down the impossibly steep mountain slope, taking the enemy by surprise. The battlefield comes to life here. Wielding deadly samurai swords, the Japanese efficiently slaughter their enemy, red blood gushing from severed heads. Stragglers flee in chaotic disarray. This screen is teeming with gruesome vignettes. Hideyoshi demanded that noses of dead enemy soldiers, pickled in salt, be sent back to Japan as proof of fighting. They were interred in the huge, grassy burial mound misnamed Mimizuka (“Ear mound”), probably Kyoto’s least visited tourist attraction, near what is now the Kyoto National Museum. The legacy of Hideyoshi’s war in Korea, Japan’s first attempt to become a global power, was the justification for Japan’s annexation of Korea in the 20th century, on the one hand, and the foundation of Korean nationalism on the other.