The Daimyo Clock Museum (大名時計博物館) is a small community-run museum in Yanaka 2-chōme,

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

. The museum was established in 1972 to display

Japanese clock A is a mechanical clock that has been made to tell traditional Japanese time, a system in which daytime and nighttime are always divided into six periods whose lengths consequently change with the season. Mechanical clocks were introduced into ...

s from the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

collected by Sakujiro (known as "Guro") Kamiguchi (1892–1970).

Origin of the Museum collection

Sakujiro Kamiguchi owned a highly unusual log cabin shop which sold western clothing. The shop became known locally as "Grotesque", and this was the origin of Kamiguchi's nickname, "Guro". Kamiguchi had many interests, including pottery. He first became interested in Japanese clocks when he came across an English-made watch with an attached

sundial A sundial is a horology, horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the position of the Sun, apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the ...

in a local shop. Kamiguchi realised the unique cultural importance of daimyo clocks: :"Because the Tokugawa ''shōguns'' closed the country, a pure Japanese-style clock was created. Like the ukiyoe woodblock prints, the importance of these clocks was recognised abroad, and the clocks have been bought up at cut-rate prices and taken away from the country right up to the time of the

Great Kanto Earthquake Great may refer to: Descriptions or measurements * Great, a relative measurement in physical space, see Size * Greatness, being divine, majestic, superior, majestic, or transcendent People * List of people known as "the Great" * Artel Great (bo ...

. Now it won't be long before a Japanese scholar wishing to research the development of these clocks will be reduced to visiting foreign collections." In 1951, Kamiguchi established the Kamiguchi Japanese Clock Preservation Society, and gifted his collection to it. After his death in 1970, his son Hitoshi Kamiguchi became President of the Society and opened the museum in April 1972.

Exhibits

Daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

s'' ('great lords') were the feudal aristocracy of Japan in the

and they were the only people who could afford expensive timepieces. The museum displays mechanical clocks, sundials and

incense clock The incense clock () is a timekeeping device that originated from China during the Song dynasty (960–1279) and spread to neighboring East Asian countries such as Japan and Korea. The clocks' bodies are effectively specialized censers that ho ...

s previously owned by daimyo families. There are around 50 pieces on display from the collection's total of some 200 items, in a single 83 square metre room. The museum's labels are all in Japanese only, though an English-language pamphlet explaining the traditional Japanese timekeeping system is also available.

Access

The nearest metro station is Nezu on the

Chiyoda line The is a subway line owned and operated by Tokyo Metro in Tokyo, Japan. On average, the line carries 1,447,730 passengers daily (2017), the second highest of the Tokyo Metro network, behind the Tozai Line (1,642,378).Nippori.

External links

Other clock museums in Japan (Japan Clock and Watch Association)

* ttps://apps.apple.com/us/app/daimyo-clock/id1268135788 An iOS implementation of a Daimyo Clock for iPhone and iPad

References

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