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Large sculpture - White horse Hakuba, Japan Edo period
Description
Great White Horse Hakuba, Japan Edo period
Very rare white horse, Hakuba in Japanese, large in size, carved from wood covered with Gofun and painted. Tail and mane braided with horsehair. Wrought iron bit.
Mounted on a stained wooden base with wooden casters.
Japan, EDO period, 18th/19th century.
In Shinto, the horse occupies a privileged place as the sacred mount of the kami.
From the Nara period (710-794), the cult of the shinme, divine horse, was established, consisting of offering a live horse as a votive offering to a sanctuary to symbolically serve as a steed for the divinities.
The Engishiki, a collection of laws and rites from the 10th century, stipulates precisely the color of the horse to be offered according to the prayers: a black horse to invoke rain, and a white horse to obtain the return of good weather.
Traditionally, white symbolizes the sun and clarity, while dark horses evoke clouds and precipitation.
More broadly, the color white is synonymous with purity in Shinto, reinforcing over time the sacred character of the white horses called Hakuba. The latter are also perceived by the Japanese as supernatural beings heralding good omens. Horses dedicated to shrines were carefully maintained and fed in sacred stables, only leaving on the day of the rite when they were sent to the kami to serve as mounts. These expensive offerings were particularly common among feudal lords wishing to obtain divine favor. With the rising cost of maintaining horses, symbolic substitutes appeared from the medieval period. The faithful began to offer equestrian representations of various sizes depending on their income, in the form of terracotta or wooden figurines, then painted wooden panels representing a horse, called ema and meaning image of a horse.
Although the Emas have since adopted various motifs, the original term has persisted to designate these votive plaques still present in temples.
Today, few shrines still maintain real sacred horses (ikegami), a practice that has become exceptional in Japan, with only about ten shrines recorded. Now, it is mainly life-size white wooden sculptures that replace live horses, traditionally housed in votive stables called Hakuba-sha, or white horse houses.
These horses, designed to be moved using casters under their bases, participate in rare religious festivals called Uma Dashi Matsuri. Preserved in Shinto shrines, they are now extremely rare and are only brought out exceptionally, for the duration of a ritual or a sacred procession.
In Tomo-no-ura, Hiroshima Prefecture, the Hassaku no Uma Dashi is a unique exception: every September, a few families from local clans present their own white horses mounted on wheels at this festival. This parade, intended to invoke the protection of the deities over newborns, is the only known festival where such horses, usually linked to a shrine, are privately owned. Their rarity (there are about ten large ones) is accentuated by the strict conservation requirements: regularly repainted, protected against insects and structurally reinforced, they require constant, often costly, maintenance.
Thus, white horses represent not only a religious tradition deeply rooted in Japanese spirituality, but also a rare and precious artistic heritage, a living witness to a thousand-year-old history and a still vibrant ritual practice. It is extremely rare to find them in commerce and outside Japan, especially of this quite exceptional size.
Overall with base: height 148cm x 122cm x 46cm
Base only: 12cm x 122 cm x 46cm
Unavailable
