National Treasures & Important Cultural Properties
of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

This mask represents a man that is older than N-235. There is a large hole on its head. It is found that the right side of the midline and the left side are out of alignment, although only slightly. Investigation by X-ray clearly shows that the mask is split in two along the midline. However, the cloth on the surface is not split, while the cloth underneath the surface is cut and only the texture pattern is aligned. Thus, this mask was probably made by placing cloth on the clay model, applying lacquer to the cloth to harden it, cutting the hardened piece in two for unmolding, then jointing the two pieces again and covering the jointed pieces with another piece of cloth. This fact is interesting in terms of the technique for producing dry-lacquered masks (Kanshitsu-men).