Model of a Pagoda with Famous Scenes

This stunning work of art, a pagoda in miniature, was shown at the Panama-Pacific Exposition, a World’s Fair held in San Francisco in 1915. Pagodas are tall multi-roofed buildings that originally housed relics of the Buddha or another venerated person. This stunning model of one, however, is far removed from this sacred function and made solely as a showcase of craftsmanship.

This pagoda evokes a five-story 7th-century example (the world’s oldest wooden structure) at Horyu-ji near the southern Japanese city of Nara. The work is a virtuosic display of craftsmanship. Every wall of the structure is decorated with scenic images, including spectacles such as Mt. Fuji, the Itsukushima Shrine, and the Kiyomizu Temple, while the roofs are embellished with figures of butterflies and birds in flight. The design is created using a textured inlay technique called nunome-zogan (cloth inlay), for which the Komai Workshop is renowned. The technique involves hammering gold, silver, and copper sheets and wires onto a roughened steel surface, covering the compositions with successive thin coats of opaque black lacquer, and polishing the lacquer to expose the raised metal beneath.

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Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.

The Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, 1915; purchased by Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1915; by bequest to Walters Art Museum, 1931.