About This Print

Bordered in black, this is one of two prints (the other being the triptych Illustration of the Main Gate at Aoyama During the Imperial Funeral Ceremony) created by the artist picturing the September 13, 1912 evening funeral procession for Emperor Meiji from the Imperial Palace to the Aoyama military parade grounds. While this print depicts the procession just after its departure from the Imperial Palace and passage over Nijūbashi, the triptych depicts the procession as it enters the Aoyama military parade grounds, where it ends.

The funeral session was enormous in scale, involving more than 20,000 people. It began at 8:00 p.m. with the departure from the palace grounds through the main gate at Nijūbashi (Double Bridge). It is this first stage of the procession that is represented in this hexaptych, the format of which certainly lent itself to such an occasion. At the center of the procession was the hearse, which was pulled by five oxen and accompanied by some three hundred individuals carrying torches, drums, gongs, banners, bows, shields, and lances. Among those closest to the hearse were imperial prices, senior members of the aristocracy and peerage, and high-level military personnel of the army and navy in full dress uniform. The contrast between those wearing ancient court dress and those resplendent in Western-style uniforms, with black armbands was a vivid one, and well captured by the artist.1