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JAPAN

Armour (dōmaru)

1750 - 1850

Steel, lacquer, gold, shakudō, iron, gilt bronze, gilt and silvered copper, cotton, silk brocade, stencilled doe-skin, gilt-leather linings, horn toggles | 151.0 × 71.0 × 70.0 cm (overall, approx., when mounted) (whole object) | RCIN 64125

This parade armour may never have been worn, but it would certainly have been displayed in a tokonoma, the alcove where seasonal objects are admired by guests. The style of the large shoulder guards harks back to the ‘Golden Age’ of the samurai in twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

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