The Imperial Phoenix Carriage Leaves the Palace for the Military Review at Aoyama (left panel)
- Date:
- 1892
- Medium:
- Color woodcut; left panel of a triptych
This 1892 color woodcut, the left panel of an originally three-panel [triptych](/glossary/triptych) and held by the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, depicts the Meiji Emperor's phoenix carriage departing the Imperial Palace grounds en route to a military review at the Aoyama parade ground in Tokyo. The print was published by Nagamatsu Sōgorō. Annual military reviews at Aoyama, attended in person by the Emperor and the Imperial General Staff, were among the most theatrical state spectacles of the late Meiji period; they served to display the new conscript army to the Tokyo public and to choreograph the Emperor's role as commander-in-chief. Watanabe Nobukazu's design places ranks of mounted cavalry, court officials in European-cut uniforms, and the gilt phoenix carriage at the visual climax of the composition, with the architecture of the Nishinomaru gates rendered in documentary detail. The central panel of the original triptych is missing; the surviving left panel stands as an important visual document of Meiji-era state pageantry and of the iconography by which the imperial household was made visible to the modernizing Japanese public. The print is held under accession number 1963.30.5337 in the Achenbach Foundation collection.
1894
Color woodblock print; oban triptych
1892
Color woodcut; right panel of a triptych
銀婚大典之御儀式
1894
Color woodblock print; oban triptych
1894
Color woodblock print; oban triptych
The Imperial Phoenix Carriage Leaves the Palace for the Military Review at Aoyama (left panel) was created by Watanabe Nobukazu (渡辺延一) in 1892.