Conservation and exhibitions: Masterpieces of Edo Paintings and Prints

One of the main events of the Russian-Japan Bilateral Year will be the opening of the Masterpieces of Edo Paintings and Prints exhibition in The Pushkin State Museum together with the Tokyo National Museum and the Museum of Oriental Art (Moscow) in September 2018. The exhibition will feature more than 120 works by artists of traditional japanese art schools: Kanō, Tosa, Rinpa, Nanga, Maruyama-Shijō, and Ukiyo-e.

The most characteristic genres for the Edo period were scroll paintings and coloured woodcuts on everyday themes, which due to their brightness and detail are a valuable source of information about the era.

The state of preservation of the works in some cases required professional conservation with minimal intervention to prepare them for the exhibition. While working on these pieces, among which were coloured woodcuts, fans and scrolls, the conservators from the Paper conservation workshop had to rely on the Oriental conservation traditions using contemporary techniques.

You can see these and other works from the unique period in the history of the Land of the Rising Sun from 4th to 30th of September and from 3th to 28^th of October in the main building of the museum.