Tokugawa Yoshikatsu at the Edo to Meiji Transition

Born into the Takasu Matsudaira family, a branch of the Owari Tokugawa, Tokugawa Yoshikatsu (1824–83) became the 14th head of the Owari Tokugawa family and lived through the upheaval of the late Edo period and Meiji Restoration as the final actual daimyō of that household. Through the life of Yoshikatsu, who carried the burden of the leadership of the Owari domain and led the way toward a new era for Japan, we explore his unknowable decisions in this period of historic change.
Yoshikatsu was also deeply knowledgeable about painting and calligraphy, natural history, and the literary arts, and in particular gave much attention to the art of photography, which had just recently arrived in Japan from the West. He personally took many photographs himself and was even known as the “photographer daimyō.” The photographs he took constitute valuable records of the interior and exterior of Nagoya Castle, which was destroyed by fire in the air raids of 1945, as well as portrait photographs of members of the Owari Tokugawa family. In celebration of the completion of restoration of the Nagoya Castle Honmarugoten Palace, this exhibition presents photographs of the former Nagoya Castle along with photographs taken by Yoshikatsu from the collection of The Tokugawa Institute for the History of Forestry.