Old Monkey (by Takamura Koun, 1893/wooden)

Takamura Koun's Masterpiece for the Chicago Fair

The Old Monkey (by Takamura Koun, 1893/wooden) (老猿〈高村光雲作　明治二十六年／木造〉) is a wooden sculpture of an old monkey carved by Takamura Koun in 1893, held by the Tokyo National Museum, which in 1999 was designated an Important Cultural Property.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs records a single figure owned by the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage.

According to the Agency, it was made for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

The Sculpture

According to the Agency, the old monkey, covered in long fur, glares up to the right, twisting its body forward, reaching out with its left hand to grasp five eagle feathers and gripping a rock with its right as it sits on the crag.

Figure and rock are carved in the round from a single block of horse chestnut, left unpainted, with black minerals inset for the eyes. An inscription on the back of the rock records that Takamura Koun made it in 1893.

What to Look For

The Agency relates that, according to Koun's dictated memoirs, he searched the mountains of Tochigi for a great horse chestnut tree, and borrowed as his model a monkey kept at a teahouse in Asakusa. The fine, rippling grain of the pale wood is used to render the fur as the monkey glares at the sky, clutching the tail feathers of the eagle that escaped it.

The Agency praises it as a grand work of intense spirit based on close observation. Koun, born in Asakusa in 1852, entered the workshop of the Buddhist sculptor Takamura Toun at 12 and opened new ground by adding life drawing to traditional techniques.

Visiting the Old Monkey (by Takamura Koun, 1893/wooden)

The sculpture is held by the Tokyo National Museum and is not always on display; check the museum's schedule.