Uesugi Kenshin and the Battle of Kawanakajima

The Yonezawa City Uesugi Museum will hold a special exhibition titled "Uesugi Kenshin and the Battle of Kawanakajima" in commemoration of the museum's 25th anniversary. The exhibition will be held in the museum's special exhibition gallery. A key feature of the exhibition is the display of the national treasure Uesugi-bon Rakuchu Rakugai-zu Byobu (Scenes In and Around the Capital — Uesugi Version), on view from April 18 to May 17. This marks the first time the folding screen has been displayed since undergoing restoration.

About the Folding Screen

The Uesugi-bon Rakuchu Rakugai-zu Byobu was painted by Kano Eitoku, a leading painter of the Momoyama period. It is traditionally held to have been presented by Oda Nobunaga to Uesugi Kenshin in 1574 as a gesture of goodwill. The screen measures approximately 1.6 metres in height and 3.7 metres in width on each of its two panels. The right panel depicts the eastern districts of Kyoto, while the left panel depicts the western districts, together rendering the streets of the capital across the four seasons and the daily lives of some 2,500 figures in meticulous detail. While over 100 examples of the Rakuchu Rakugai-zu genre survive from the Edo period, the Uesugi version is among the earliest and is noted for its excellent state of preservation. It was designated a National Treasure in 1995.

Restoration

The screen underwent major restoration work in 1999 and 2000. Following more than 25 years of further ageing, signs of paint layer detachment and cracking became apparent, and a new restoration was carried out in fiscal year 2025 through the Government Crowdfunding scheme. Work was conducted by specialist cultural property conservators and involved repeated application of animal glue (nikawa) by brush to areas of paint loss, and injection of fresh wheat starch paste to areas where the base material had lifted. The restoration took approximately six months to complete.