EDO PERIOD (LATE 18TH - 19TH CENTURY)

This unusual pair of screens features fans decorated with typical Japanese subjects including Mount Fuji and various scenes from nature, however one fan contains scattered Unsun karuta (playing cards). The Spanish/Portuguese 48-card deck arrived in Japan in the second half of the 16th century, and it had 4 suits - cups, swords, coins, and clubs - said to represent the four classes of medieval Europe: priests, knights, merchants, and peasants. At some point in their love affair with European playing cards, the Japanese added a fifth suit, marked by the ‘three jewels’, or tomoe, crest, symbolising bounty, featured here on the screen. Within these five suits we find the mounted horseman, the maiden, the dragon, a Chinese-looking high official (see the card at the far right), and figures from the Japanese Seven Lucky Gods (see Daikoku, his mallet, and his bale of rice symbolising plenty at the extreme left of the fan). The dragon motif, a feature of the original Iberian set long associated with Portugal, must have been particularly popular in Japan, even though the winged dragon suggests St. George - a Christian motif that surely would have displeased Japanese authorities.

It is possible that this eclectic amalgam of card-characters can be explained by the Japanese association of the Iberians with material bounty because of the rare and precious commodities they brought. The foreign notion of card games caught on like wildfire and was subject to constant regulation by the Tokugawa shogunate, which frowned on gambling. Decks went through various permutations to get around the proscriptions, including the revised pack called Unsun Karuta - a mix of European, Chinese, and Japanese motifs - which may be what is pictured here.