Travel memories. Paintings from Japan at Agliè Castle

During your visit to the castle, you will find Ricordi di viaggio. Dipinti dal Giappone al Castello di Agliè (Travel Memories. Paintings from Japan at Agliè Castle), a new exhibition featuring 21 Japanese paintings restored by the Fondazione Centro Conservazione e Restauro ‘La Venaria Reale’. These are works of extraordinary vivacity that convey the graphic freshness and elegance of Japanese artists.

There are nineteen paintings on paper, mounted on Western papier peint in the format of traditional hanging scrolls, and two refined kakemono on silk, purchased in Japan by Tomaso, Duke of Savoy-Genoa, during his voyage in command of the corvette Vettor Pisani between 1879 and 1881.

Musical frogs playing drums, crows, courtesans with parasols, women at mirrors and men flying in a hot-air balloon have been restored to their original intensity.

Already documented in the residence in the 1908 inventory, these paintings are now back on display in the visitor route, accompanied by 28 Japanese blue and white ceramic garden vases purchased in Yokohama in 1880: ancient bonsai containers originating mainly from Seto.

The exhibition, distributed between the antechamber of the Chinese Room and the Chinese Room itself, offers a renewed interpretation of the presence of the Orient in the Savoy residence and enhances the silk kakemonos, placing them in dialogue with the 17th-century samurai armour that arrived in Agliè via the same expedition.

The works have undergone extensive restoration. The work addressed the typical critical issues of Oriental supports on Western mountings, restoring stability, legibility and aesthetic quality to this group of paintings, which had long remained rolled up in storage and already appeared in the 1908 inventory, when a corridor on the second floor was named the “Galleria detta del Giappone” (Gallery known as Japan), a sign of the collection's deep roots in the history of the Castle.

Most of the paintings, ink drawings and watercolours on paper bear the signature of the renowned painter Kawanabe Kyōsai (1831-1889), author of satirical scenes populated by animals, caricatures and representations of everyday life with Japanese and Western characters, executed with surprising speed. Some kakemono and paintings are four-handed works (gassaku) created during convivial seki-ga, “seated painting” performances that were fashionable in Japan between the 19th and 20th centuries.