5 Art and Architecture for Empress Tōfukumon’in

uring the third decade of the sev- the royal wedding enteenth century the advanced for a warlord’s daughter Dtheir plans to further appropriate imperi- al prestige and establish their own elite status. A The marriage of the emperor and the shogun’s crucial element in this agenda transpired in 1620 daughter was made possible by a complicated and when Go-Mizunoo, yielding to pressure, married prolonged exchange between the elites of Kyoto and Tokugawa Masako (later known as Tōfukumon’in), Edo, a dialogue initiated by Ieyasu, who hoped one the fourteen-year-old daughter of the current sho- day to see a great-grandson on the imperial throne. gun, . This was a virtually un- Yet that goal was not as easily achieved as might precedented instance of an emperor taking a wife have been imagined: at least eleven years of plan- from a warrior clan. Hidetada, who recognized the ning and negotiation were needed to realize the de- political value of befriending and assuaging the sired outcome, which was by no means universally court, then paid visits to Kyoto and sponsored a accepted.2 A pair of sumptuously painted four-panel number of construction projects there. These dis- folding screens entitled the Wedding Procession of plays of bakufu generosity toward the monarch’s Tōfukumon’in (Tōfukumon’in judai-zu byōbu; Mitsui hometown were also a Tokugawa strategy to com- Bunko Art Museum; fi g. 46) conveys the great pomp pete with memories of Toyotomi largesse in the an- and ceremony of the public facet of the event.3 This cient capital.1 With that in mind, Hidetada arranged work depicts the bride’s lengthy parade passing by for his daughter’s wedding procession to be staged throngs of viewers. Scholars date the screens to the as spectacular political theater with the entire pop- third or fourth decade of the seventeenth century, ulace of Kyoto as an audience. but the artist and patron remain unknown.4 Quite This chapter examines visual imagery associat- possibly the screens were commissioned by a mem- ed with the marriage, beginning with the bridal pa- ber or retainer of the Tokugawa clan, but whether rade itself as portrayed in the Wedding Procession of that individual was close to Tōfukumon’in is not Tōfukumon’in, an anonymous pair of screens, and certain. Nevertheless, displaying these screens the preparation of an elaborate suite of palace build- would have conveyed the original owner’s connec- ings for the new empress. This chapter also intro- tion to the bride, a famous young empress who duces Tōfukumon’in’s life in the palace and high- hailed from the leading military clan of the day. lights the importance of wealth and status in the The bride came with an unimpeachable warrior balance of power between emperor and shogun. pedigree. Not only was her father the head of the Tokugawa clan, but her mother, Eyo-no-kata (also Portrait of Empress Tōfukumon’in, detail of fi g. 58. known as Ogō and Sūgen’in; 1573–1626), was de-

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46 Wedding Procession of Tōfukumon’in (right screen). 17th century. Pair of four-panel folding screens; ink, colors, and gold on paper. Each screen 157 x 357 cm. Mitsui Bunko Art Museum, . Important Cultural Property.

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