Arms and Armour from the Land of the Rising Sun | Tsarskoe Selo State Museum and Heritage Site

06-09-2023

05-11-2023

Tosei-gusoku suit of armour (helmet)Tosei-gusoku suit of armour (helmet) Pre-Meiji Japanese samurai arms and armour

Pre-Meiji Japanese samurai arms and armourPre-Meiji Japanese samurai arms and armour Itomaki-no-tachi sword (guard and grip)

Itomaki-no-tachi sword (guard and grip)Itomaki-no-tachi sword (guard and grip) Panel of a 19th-c. Japanese cabinet with a samurai warrior

Panel of a 19th-c. Japanese cabinet with a samurai warriorPanel of a 19th-c. Japanese cabinet with a samurai warrior Katana sword (grip)

Katana sword (grip)Katana sword (grip) Itomaki-no-tachi sword in a scabbard

Itomaki-no-tachi sword in a scabbardItomaki-no-tachi sword in a scabbard Katana sword (guard and grip)

Katana sword (guard and grip)Katana sword (guard and grip)

6 September through 5 November 2023, the Arsenal Pavilion in the Alexander Park of Tsarskoe Selo houses a mini-exhibition of pre-Meiji Japanese samurai gear titled Arms and Armour from the Land of the Rising Sun.

The exhibition is a co-project between Tsarskoe Selo and St Petersburg's Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineers and Signal Corps. The latter lent us the seventeenth-nineteenth century artefacts including a tosei-gusoku suit of armour on a mannequin, a katana sword, a wakizashi sword, an itomaki-no-tachi sword, a hoshi-bachi kabuto helmet, a tantō sword and a matchlock rifle .

On display from the Tsarskoe Selo collection are remarkable nineteenth-century panels of a Japanese cabinet with depictions of samurai warriors.