EDO PERIOD (18TH-19TH CENTURY), ATTRIBUTED TO MYOCHIN YOSHIHISA

The Myochin family are the best-known among armor makers of Japan, with branches spread throughout the country active from around the 16th century until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. During the relatively peaceful Edo period (1615-1868), armor was used only for a show of military strength by the feudal lords in their annual processions to and from the capital, Edo, and the demand for new armors decreased. But the Myochin family managed to maintain a share of the dwindling market by making more and more technically excellent armors with eye-catching embossed motifs of deities, lions, and dragons. They were able to open branch schools in a number of provinces and their fame spread throughout Japan. Traditional Japanese armor has helmet, face mask, the cuirass and sometimes arm and leg protection of hammered and shaped separate iron plates all individually shaped and riveted together. These and other components are carried on a flexible body of rows of small plates laced together loosely with silk braid so as to allow freedom of movement. The technology for making such armor together with the characteristics of flexibility combined with strength were adapted by the Myochin makers for extraordinary articulated iron model animals such as the present carp, doubtless in order to display their skill and spread the family name. It is likely such models would have been displayed proudly by their well-established samurai owners, as indeed a helmet or even a whole armor might be displayed, in the alcove in the formal room in a house.