Publication

Japan: Courts and Culture

Telling the story of 400 years of British royal contact with Japan

Rachel Peat

320 pages

Take a look at this elegantly produced book for a preview of our forthcoming Queen's Gallery exhibition: Japan: Courts and Culture

Japan: Courts and Culture cover ©

Hardback, 270 × 235 mm, approx. 340 colour illustrations
ISBN 978 1 909741 68 3

This fascinating publication tells the story of 400 years of British royal contact with Japan.

It explores how exquisite decorative arts were central both to direct diplomatic relations and to indirect cultural connection.

Its major theme is of princely contact, distinguished by the royal tours and personal gift exchange, which reached their zenith in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Featuring new research on previously unpublished works, including lacquer, armour, embroidery and metalwork, this book showcases the exquisite craftsmanship of these beautiful objects, and the local materials, techniques and tradition behind them, within the context of three centuries of Japanese–British relations.

Rachel Peat is Assistant Curator, Non-European Works of Art, Royal Collection Trust.

With contributions by Andrew Brown, Ine Castelijns van Beek, William H. Coaldrake, Sally Goodsir, Caroline de Guitaut, Gregory Irvine, Kathryn Jones, Aris Kourkoumelis, Stephen Patterson, Melanie Wilson and Rhian Wong.