12 september – 9 november 2008

The year 2008 celebrates the millennium of Genji Monogatari, namely the Story of Genji, the Bright Prince’, known as the first novel in the history of literature of all times. It is a story made of 54 chapters written in Japan iduring the Heian period (Eleventh  century) by the lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu.
The Oriental Art Museum of Venice is celebrating it by means of an exhibition. More than forty works of art are on display, coming from the rich collections of the museum, which cannot usually be seen by the public; they are all characterized by very refined decorating patterns related to the image of Genji, a romantic prince, whose novel deals with the life and the tangled love affairs of the court environment of those times. Particularly remarkable is a precious painted paper album dating back to the second half of the Seventeenth century, of which you can admire, by means of a video on purpose realized, all the pictures related to the chapters of such novel. In addition to that there are also paintings, folding screens, dresses, lacquers, toys, musical instruments, hilts and sword equipments. The iconographic meaning of the works on display is made clear by the passages of the story inspiring the decorating patterns. All the pieces belong to prince Enrico di Borbone’s collection which gave rise to the museum.

Tania Danieli