  About the Artwork
  
  
  The monumental scallop shell and elongated shape of this helmet would have made its samurai wearer stand out in a crowd, signaling his high status.

While this helmet derives from military culture, Japan had entered a peaceful era in the 1600s, and many items originally made for warfare took on new lives as ceremonial objects. Every few years, a daimyo, or powerful landowner, wore his most ornate armor to visit and pay tribute to Japan's highest military leader, the shogun. Families also displayed such heirlooms to commemorate notable ancestors who had owned them.
 
To decorate this sculptural headgear — a type known as kawari kabuto, or “exotic helmet” — artists carved the wood shell, covered it in lacquer, then sprinkled silver dust on the front and coated the back with gold leaf to create shimmering surfaces. The tall, curving form of the helmet evokes the tail of a catfish (namazu), a symbol of strength.
  
  
  Title
  Samurai Helmet (Namazu-o Kawari Kabuto)
  
  
  Artwork Date
  17th century
  
  Artist
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  Life Dates
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  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  Japanese
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Metal, wood, lacquer, silver dust, gold leaf, fiber
  
  
  Dimensions
  Overall: 26 × 16 1/2 × 14 1/2 inches (66 × 41.9 × 36.8 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Arms and Armor
  
  
  Department
  Asian Art
  
  
  Credit
  Museum Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  2017.1
  
  
  Copyright
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