Edo Period painting
- Gallery: Room 93
- Culture: Edo Period
- Made in: Japan
- Date: 17thC(early)
- Object type: painting, screen
- Materials: paper
- Museum number: 1881,1210,0.417-422
- Museum: The British Museum
- Collection record: British Museum website
- Image © The Trustees of the British Museum, shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
Listen to the free audio guide
About this object
In front of you is a painting from Japan’s Edo Period, around the early 17th century. This six-panel folding screen was originally part of a set, and it shows six horses in a stable. Each panel is a work of art that works well both alone and as part of the pair.
The horses are painted with careful attention to detail, and their individual patterns and tethers make each panel unique. While similar screens often include human figures or depict lively social scenes, this one focuses purely on the animals and the quiet space of the stable.
The composition is unusual—most stable scenes are shown from above, but here the view is at eye level, as if you're sitting right in front of the stalls. The work belongs to the Tosa School, known for its refined style and attention to naturalistic detail.
This painting was part of a large collection brought to the British Museum by Professor William Anderson after his time in Japan in the 1870s and 1880s.
See it in person
Edo Period painting is on display in Room 93 at the British Museum on Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London — free to enter. Choose British Museum on audioguide.london and take a photo of it to hear this free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
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