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Source Description
This tsuba depicts a scene from the story of Urashima. Urashima was a fisherman who accidentally caught a tortoise in his net. He freed the tortoise and threw it back in the sea. Later, a beautiful woman appeared to him on the water and took him to the underwater palace of her father, the Dragon King. She was tortoise he had saved. They live happily in the palace for three years when Urashima decided he wanted to visit his hometown. His wife gave him a box she told him not to open if he wanted to return to the underwater palace. When Urashima arrived at his old home, he could not find his parents or his house. What had seemed like three years to him had actually been three hundred years. When he opened the box, he instantly aged those three hundred years and died. This tsuba shows Urashima leaving the Dragon Palace with the box on the back of a tortoise. The palace is also depicted on the reverse.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
34795
label
Tsuba with Urashima Taro Leaving the Palace of the Dragon King
core
obj
dtoType
object
citationUrl
pageCount
3
Source metadata
id
34795
sourceUrl
contentType
object
stage
normalized
title
Tsuba with Urashima Taro Leaving the Palace of the Dragon King
description
This tsuba depicts a scene from the story of Urashima. Urashima was a fisherman who accidentally caught a tortoise in his net. He freed the tortoise and threw it back in the sea. Later, a beautiful woman appeared to him on the water and took him to the underwater palace of her father, the Dragon King. She was tortoise he had saved. They live happily in the palace for three years when Urashima decided he wanted to visit his hometown. His wife gave him a box she told him not to open if he wanted to return to the underwater palace. When Urashima arrived at his old home, he could not find his parents or his house. What had seemed like three years to him had actually been three hundred years. When he opened the box, he instantly aged those three hundred years and died. This tsuba shows Urashima leaving the Dragon Palace with the box on the back of a tortoise. The palace is also depicted on the reverse.
provenance
Henry Walters, Baltimore [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
date
1870-1896 (late Edo-Meiji)
citationUrl
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
genreSpecific
Arms & Armor
tsubas
sword components
imageCount
3
pageCount
3
source
import
dimensions
units
cm
width
8
height
6.7
depth
0.4
dimensionsRaw
3 1/8 x 2 5/8 x 3/16 in. (7.96 x 6.7 x 0.43 cm)
Source extras
cul
Japanese
style
Mito School
inscriptions
[Signature] 於忍岡邊 海野盛壽鐫; [Transliteration] Shinobu-no-Okabe ni oite/Unno Moritoshi sen; [Translation] At Shinobu-no-Okabe/Engraved by Unno Moritoshi
med
silver, copper, gilt
creator_ids
5761
collection_ids
JMA
exhibition_ids
none
Page inventory
seq
1
type
photo
mediaId
221cdc7c26779a53
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
2
type
photo
mediaId
700bceb0b83fd08a
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
3
type
photo
mediaId
9d52ddbb866c9d62
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no