Korean Embassy Parade

Dated 1682 and held in the Art Institute of Chicago, this hand-colored makimono-e (handscroll print) depicts the procession of a Korean diplomatic embassy through Edo, an event of major civic spectacle that occurred eleven times during the Edo period between 1607 and 1811. The 1682 embassy was one of these formal Joseon-Tokugawa diplomatic missions, sent to congratulate the new shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, and its progress through Edo drew immense crowds. Moronobu's print, in the elongated makimono-e format that mimicked the horizontal flow of a painted handscroll, captures the unfolding character of the procession with banner carriers, musicians, dignitaries, and mounted officials parading across an extended composition. The hand-coloring, added after the initial sumizuri-e printing, highlights the foreign costumes, banners, and instruments that distinguished the Korean embassy from a Japanese daimyo procession and that made these embassies such fascinating visual events for Edo viewers. The work documents Moronobu's role in extending [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) subject matter into the realm of contemporary historical event, a precedent that would continue through war prints, news prints, and other documentary genres in later centuries.