Animals, Animals, Animals！From the Edo-Tokyo Museum Collection

During the long peaceful days of the Edo period (1603–1868), humans interacted with animals in various ways in the course of their daily lives. A rich tapestry of animal life was on display, with animals reared by humans, working alongside their human masters, or roaming free in nature, for instance.
When the American zoologist Edward S. Morse came to Japan in 1877, he was surprised by how kind and respectful Japanese people were to animals. In his diary, he wrote about how the townsfolk would try to step over or otherwise avoid cats and dogs on the street. He also recounted how people would affectionately use the honorific“san” when talking to animals. The works in this exhibition reveal how dogs, cats, oxen, horses, chickens and other creatures were a much more familiar presence in our lives back then, with animals treated as friends and colleagues.

The history and culture of the intertwined lives of humans and animals are principally explored here through the rich collection of the Tokyo Metropolitan Edo-Tokyo Museum (currently closed for renovations). The exhibition is based on Un Bestiaire Japonais 2–Vivre Avec les Animaux à Edo-Tokyo (XVIIIe-XIXe Siècles), a highly-acclaimed exhibition that the Tokyo Metropolitan Edo-Tokyo Museum staged in Paris in 2022 on the 25th anniversary of the Maison de la culture du Japon à Paris. The contents have now been expanded to mark the exhibition’s triumphal return to Japan. These include ukiyo-e woodblock prints of people enjoying their lives with animals, for example, and everyday items with designs featuring our furry and feathery friends. We hope these convey a sense of the richness of this coexistence and the preciousness of the bounteous natural environment that nurtured it.

• Japan’s people and animals, as seen through the eyes of foreigners
• Let’s find Edo’s animals in Decorative Folding Screens of Edo !
• Domesticated animals
• Wild animals
• Animals on display — from exhibitions to zoos
• Animals in designs
• Tokyo’s Horse Tramways