Important Cultural PropertyGilt bronze ban (banner)

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  • 2 pieces
  • Gilt bronze
  • (1)Total L 304.0 (2)Total L 266.5
  • Asuka period/7th century
  • Tokyo National Museum
  • N-60

These are Buddhist ritual banners made by jointing 8 gilded bronze vertically long sheets (Tsubo) with hinges and strings. The upper end of the first Tsubo is rolled into a cylinder for hanging it. In the "Gohomotsu-zue" (Illustration of Imperial Treasures), these banners seem to have been drawn as strips to be attached to the Gold and Long Buddhist Ritual Banner (Kogane-no Onnaga-ban), however, they are different in type from the Kanjoban banner (the gilded bronze Buddhist banner for the ritual ceremony called "Kanjo") in N-58 and thus they are called "Kondo-joban" (small gilded bronze Buddhist banner) because they are small in size. Each Tsubo is hemmed in a waved palmette pattern, within which the standing or sitting image of a tathagata (Nyorai), the standing image of Bodhisattva (Bosatsu), a heavenly being and a lion are expressed by openwork, partly painted in red, ultramarine and Montpellier green. Judging from the style of the heavenly being and the palmette pattern, this work is thought to have been created a little later than the creation of the Kanjoban in the late seventh century. At present, most of the eighth Tsubo of the second banner is preserved at the HakuTsuru Fine Art Museum.

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