A JAPANESE COMPOSITE ARMOUR, GUSOKU

EDO 1615-1868

The five-plate kawari kabuto helmet topped with a dragon emerging from scrolling clouds; the fukigaeshi (turnbacks) with stencilled leather; the three-tiered kittsuke-zane shikoro (neckguard) with orange and blue kebiki-odoshi lacing; an iron menpo face mask and a four-lane yodarekake (throat guard); the iron do (chest armour) and sode (shoulder pads) with lacquer and yellow lacing; the lacquered iron kikko haidate (thigh guards) with hexagonal kikko iron plates and with iron shino-suneate (shin guards), raised on a square wood base, 171cm overall.

Provenance: from the collection of Sir Henry Norman (1858-1939) on display at Ramster Hall, Surrey,

and thence by descent.

Sir Henry Norman (1858-1939) 1st Baronet Privy Councillor was an English journalist and Liberal politician. He worked as an editor for the Pall Mall Gazette and later the News Chronicle, becoming its Assistant Editor in 1895. In 1887, the Pall Mall Gazette sent him on an interviewing tour around the world. It was planned that his tour would last for at least six months, although he actually remained on tour for nearly four years, travelling through numerous countries including Canada, Japan, China, Korea, Siam and Malaya to name a few. As far as the history of the press was concerned, such a tour was an exceptional venture, and so Henry Norman's journey and the various newspaper articles he wrote during his travels garnered much attention. By the time he had returned to Britain in 1891, he had seen more of the world than most others of his generation or position and he used information collected throughout his tour to write two travel books about East Asia, both of which were enthusiastically received. In both The Real Japan and The Peoples and Politics of the Far East, he explores various aspects of these cultures and enthusiastically recounts his countless exciting experiences, many of which occurred during his time in Japan, Hong Kong and Beijing. In 1899, he retired as a journalist and subsequently became a Member of Parliament. He was knighted in 1906 and was made a baronet in 1915.