Presentation on the Shuten-dōji handscrolls: The 2nd Seminar of the Department of Art Research, Archives and Information System
The Shuten-dōji picture scrolls depict an ogre named Shuten-dōji who once lived on Mt. Ōe or Mt. Ibuki and engaged in the wicked acts of capturing women and plundering treasures in the capital, being conquered by samurai such as Minamoto-no- Raikō. The character of Shuten-dōji is a popular theme and there are many works depicting him that remain in existence today. One famous work, a three-scroll piece by KANŌ Motonobu, which is owned by the Suntory Museum of Art, is well known. At this seminar, a presentation titled “Regarding the First Appearance of SUMIYOSHI Hiroyuki’s ‘Shuten-dōji handscrolls’ (owned by the GRASSI Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig)” was given. This work consists of six volumes, and its existence was completely unknown after Heinrich Botho Scheube, a foreign physician hired by the Meiji Government, brought it to Germany in 1882. The presenter was able to inspect the pieces in this work at Leipzig in 2019, and in this presentation, she noted that the scrolls may have been painted by SUMIYOSHI Hiroyuki in 1786 as a trousseau when Tanehime (1765-94, her biological father was TOKUGAWA Munetake, the first head of the Tayasu branch of the Tokugawa clan and her biological brother was MATSUDAIRA Sadanobu) who was an adopted daughter of TOKUGAWA Ieharu, the tenth shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, married TOKUGAWA Harutomi (1771-1853), the tenth head of the Kishū-Tokugawa family. The first half of this work was added to the content of KANŌ Motonobu’s three-volume work, and it can be said to be an important example of a body of work when moving forward with future research into Shuten-dōji handscrolls. In the future, we will continue to engage in research and utilize this work as a research material.