See it now: Japanese Armor Rotation
This weekend is your last chance to see our Japanese armor for a while. But don’t despair – next week there will be a new one to enjoy. If you want to catch both, you’ll have to drop in twice.
XRay of a pre-Meiji set of samurai armor.
So why are we taking this armor off view? Well, armor may look tough, but some of its components are surprisingly fragile. While steel, leather, and wood are used to create the protective plating, these are laced together with leather or silk cord. After several centuries, these materials may not be strong enough to hold the weight of the armor for extended periods. Materials can also be damaged by prolonged exposure to light, meaning that the armor needs to be rested periodically.
Our conservation center has written an article on how we look after our Japanese armor, and there are more images on Flickr.
Our conservation team has also been working to prepare the new set of armor, which is on loan from a private collection. In these pictures you can see Katherine Holbrow, our head of conservation, using a spectrometer to determine what metals are present in the samurai helmet.
Samurai helmet undergoing spectrometry. Helmet from Private Collection.
Head of conservation Katherine Holbrow adjusting the equipment.
We rotate many of the pieces in this collection, not just armor. Over the next few months we will be doing several gallery rotations, many in preparation for Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past. Keep an eye on the blog to hear about what’s coming down and what we’re replacing it with. We’ll try to make sure you don’t miss a thing.
4 Responses to “See it now: Japanese Armor Rotation”
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tabbycat on February 14th, 2012 at 12:38 pm
Thank you for explaining why art pieces are rotated.
yogingersnap on February 14th, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Informing the public more on the flaw of Samurai armor is great. The idea of the fighting men being some what invisible would now be changed just through the x-ray you have shown. The exoticness of the past defenses will slowly be exposed through these experimental art.
JOjo on February 14th, 2012 at 12:49 pm
This piece really shows the true meaning behind strength. How even though you can be so tough there is still a sensitive side. To many people armor is something you can’t get through and this X-Ray picture shows that it does have it’s areas where its not so strong. I really enjoyed examinig this art work because it gives a true meaning.
janet on February 23rd, 2012 at 10:43 am
Thanks for your comments, we’re glad you found this piece interesting. Tabbycat, we want to do more to share the unique characteristics of our collection, so we will be writing more about our gallery rotations in upcoming months. Yogingersnap and JOjo, we think the juxtaposition of strength and vulnerability in the armor is fascinating, too. It’s wonderful to have a full-time conservation team who can share these amazing insights with us, and we’ll try to keep sharing them with you.