JAPAN
Armour (dōmaru)
1750 - 1850Steel, lacquer, gold, shakudō, iron, gilt bronze, gilt and silvered copper, cotton, silk brocade, stencilled doe-skin, gilt-leather linings, horn toggles | 151.0 × 71.0 × 70.0 cm (overall, approx., when mounted) (whole object) | RCIN 64125
This parade armour may never have been worn, but it would certainly have been displayed in a tokonoma, the alcove where seasonal objects are admired by guests. The style of the large shoulder guards harks back to the ‘Golden Age’ of the samurai in twelfth and thirteenth centuries.