Exhibit showcasing U.K.-Japan royal relationship opens in London

An exhibition exploring 350 years of relations between the Japanese and British royal families has opened at the Queen’s Gallery near Buckingham Palace, the London home of the British monarchy.

The exhibit features some 150 items from the royal family’s permanent collection, many of which were gifted to British royals by Japanese emperors and shoguns and are on public display for the first time.

Curator Rachel Peat told Kyodo News the “stunning” works have “profoundly shaped British taste and helped forge a lasting relationship between the two nations.”

Objects on show include samurai armor and weaponry, lacquerware and ceramics. Viewed together, they trace the history of exchanges between the two courts — from the first formal contact between Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu and King James I in the 1610s to gifts received by current monarch Queen Elizabeth II.

Among the exhibition’s highlights is a set of silk screens given to Queen Victoria by Shogun Tokugawa Iemochi in 1860. The screens were previously thought to be lost and their provenance was only recently rediscovered by curators.

Research showed that the screens formed part of a grand gift to mark the resumption of direct relations between the two countries following Japan’s 250-year “sakoku” policy of isolation from the outside world.

Another gift on display is a lacquerware cosmetics box sent by Emperor Hirohito, who has become posthumously known as the Emperor Showa, to Queen Elizabeth II to mark her coronation in 1953.

Designed by renowned lacquerer Shosai Shirayama, the box was the first diplomatic gift given after Japanese-British relations were disrupted during World War II and was therefore of “great significance,” according to curators.

Also featured are letters and photographs detailing deepening ties between the two countries during the second half of the 19th century.

Among them is a letter from Prince Alfred to his mother, Queen Victoria, reflecting on his 1869 visit to Japan — the first by a British royal — and praising the Asian country’s “beautiful landscape.”

The exhibition was set to open in 2020 but postponed for almost two years due to the coronavirus pandemic. Peat said she was “delighted” to be able to welcome visitors at last.

Titled “Japan: Courts and Culture,” the exhibition will run through February 2023.