Portrait of a Warrior

Unidentified artist

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This painting of a warrior is executed at a size usually reserved for portraits of emperors and shoguns. Although the family crest of wild orange is associated with the Shibata family of the late sixteenth century, the original identifying inscription has not survived, so the sitter’s precise identity remains unknown. The unnamed samurai, clearly an important member of a warrior clan, grasps the end of his long beard—a feature banned in the seventeenth century as an expression of antiestablishment sentiment and unwelcome individualism. His eyes seem to twinkle with mischievous pleasure. Such lively, informal representation was the norm in secular depictions of deceased people, while more formality was standard in portraits of the living. A picture like this would often be dedicated to the Buddhist temple where the sitter was buried.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.

Metropolitan Museum of Art