This rare Japanese helmet was excavated in Ise Province, Mie Prefecture. The type of construction—horizontal rings to which rectangular scales are riveted—was probably imported from China or Korea. Most helmets of this type were made of iron, but some were made of gilt copper, probably for ceremonial display. This example is unusual because it combines both materials.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Helmet
Date:5th century
Culture:Japanese
Medium:Iron, copper, gold
Dimensions:H. 8 1/2 in. (21.6 cm)
Classification:Helmets
Credit Line:Fletcher Fund, 1928
Accession Number:28.60.2
Excavated before 1902 from Ōtsuka-yama kofun (burial mound), Sakume-chō, Matsuzaka City, Mie Prefecture, Japan;Dr. Seki Yasunosuke, Japan (until 1927; his sale, Kyōto Bijutsu Kurabu, Kyōto, November 28, 1927, no. 19, to MMA).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Making The Met, 1870–2020," August 29, 2020–January 3, 2021.
Hoopes, Thomas T. "Recent Acquisitions of Japanese Arms and Armor in the Metropolitan Museum." Metropolitan Museum Studies (May 1930), pp. 221–23, fig. 1.
Suenaga, Masao. Nihon Jōdai No Katchū. Ōsaka-shi: Sogensha, 1944. pl. 7.
Okada, Yuzuru, and Tōkyō Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan. Pageant of Japanese Art: Ceramics and Metalwork from 551 (pre-Buddhist) to 1868 (Edo period). Vol. 4. Tokyo: Tōto Bunka, December 1952. pp. 39, 75, fig. 66 (similar example).
Grancsay, Stephen V. "The New Galleries of Oriental Arms and Armor." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (May 1958), pp. 252–53, ill.
Grancsay, Stephen V. "The Japanese Armour Gallery in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." The Connoisseur (September 1961), p. 12, ill.
Vianello, Gianni. Armi e Armature Orientali. Milan: Fabbri, 1966. pl. 48.
Nickel, Helmut. Warriors and Worthies: Arms and Armor Through the Ages. New York: Atheneum, 1969. p. 44, ill.
Nickel, Helmut. "Arms and Armor from the Permanent Collection." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (Summer 1991), pp. 56, 64, ill.
Ogawa, Morihiro, and Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Museum. Art of Armor: Samurai Armor from the Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Museum. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. pp. 20–21, fig. 2.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Andrea Bayer, Laura D. Corey, Morrison H. Heckscher, Katharine Baetjer, Joan R. Mertens, and Barbara Drake Boehm. Making the Met, 1870–2020. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2020. pp. 95, 249, fig. 95.
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