A Japanese scroll depicting life in eighteenth century Tokyo is being restored for show after being found in a library archive.
The first year of the restoration of a rare and valuable Japanese handscroll found in library archives, which was discovered within Edinburgh's Central Library special collections, has been declared a success.
The 300-year-old scroll, entitled Theatres of the East, was gifted to Edinburgh City Libraries by a relative of Henry Dyer, a Scottish engineer who played a major part in the industrialisation of Japan.
It will go on show once the ongoing restorations is complete.
At over 44ft in length, the scroll is believed to be one of the largest paintings ever discovered by Japanese artist Furuyama Moromasa.
Central Library's scroll depicts an extended street scene in eighteenth century Edo, or Tokyo, showing the shops and theatres and domestic detail of life at that time.
The work began in May 2014 at the Restorient Studios in Leiden in the Netherlands, which specialises in restoring oriental art on silk and paper.
Once finished, it is expected that the scroll will be studied by scholars and then placed on public display at the National Museums of Scotland.
Edinburgh City Libraries was awarded a grant worth around £20,400 from Japan's The Sumitomo Foundation to restore and conserve the artwork.
Richard Lewis, Culture and Sport Convener, said: "Thanks to the funding from The Sumitomo Foundation, we are restoring Moromasa's beautiful painting to its former glory.
"The work has been painstakingly carried out by world experts and once the project is complete, this important piece of art will be a wonderful addition to Edinburgh's existing collection."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.Â
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.Â
That is invaluable.Â
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article