July 2020 Message from the Executive Director

暑中お見舞い申し上げます。Please accept our best wishes for the summer from everyone at the Sainsbury Institute. In Japan, July is the season of the Tanabata festival, marking the ancient Chinese story of the separation of two lovers, the Weaving Princess and the Cow-Herd across the Milky Way. It is also when the rainy season gives way to […]

The book ‘Japan: Courts and Culture’ has just been published

SISJAC has been working with Royal Collection Trust in a supportive role to help to deliver Royal Collection Trust’s catalogue and future exhibition of Japanese works of art in the Royal Collection. The stunning catalogue was just published in May 2020. Research Director Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere and I have since 2018 provided research and language […]

Tobunken – Sainsbury Institute Research Collections Database Project

This month marks seven years of our first-ever collaborative database project with the esteemed Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties (also known as Tobunken), for which an agreement was signed on 24 July 2013 at the Sainsbury Institute in Norwich. For the last couple of decades, online databases for academic research have developed rapidly […]

Report for the talk “Online Lecture: The Kōfukuji Nan’endō and Its Buddhist Art: Building a Realm of Death, Memory, and Family”

In the second half of the first millennium CE Japan experienced a florescence of artistic creativity associated with the development of Buddhism. Dr Chan gave us an immersive experience of this richness through examining the art associated with just one building, the Nan’endō, within the temple complex of Kōfukuji in the ancient capital of Nara. […]

Treasures of the Library: Lazuline Glass Vase with Translucent Lip

You may be acquainted with the Cortazzi Collections in the Lisa Sainsbury Library, such as old maps, ukiyo-e and antiquarian books, as they are regularly featured in this publication. In addition to these materials, Sir Hugh and Lady Cortazzi have also given three dimensional objects on long term loan. A glass vase created by Hamada […]