# Minister Kibi's Adventures in China (Kibi daijin nitto emaki) > Unknown painter of the Kyoto court circle, formerly given to Tokiwa Mitsunaga - 12th century (late Heian period) > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/kibi-daijin-emaki-painter/kibi-daijin-nitto-emaki-boston/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-24 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Unknown painter of the Kyoto court circle, formerly given to Tokiwa Mitsunaga - **Date:** 12th century (late Heian period) - **Medium:** Set of four handscrolls; ink, colour and gold on paper, with rosewood endknobs - **Dimensions:** Scroll 1 image 32 x 674.6 cm, overall 36.5 x 804.9 cm; scroll 4 image 30.2 x 648.1 cm, overall 36.7 x 779.1 cm. The four together run to roughly 24.4 m of painted surface. - **Object type:** Painting - **Period:** Japanese, Heian period - **Current location:** Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; recorded as not on view - **Attribution:** disputed ## Summary Four twelfth-century Japanese handscrolls, running to some twenty-four metres of painted surface, telling a wildly unhistorical story about a real Japanese envoy who outwits the entire Tang court with the help of a ghost. They left Japan in 1932, sold by an Osaka dealer through Yamanaka and Company of New York to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the sale caused a national outcry.The timing is the point. Japan's National Treasures Preservation Law had been in force since 1 July 1929, but it protected only objects that had been designated. These scrolls had not been. On 1 April 1933, not nine months after the accession, Japan enacted a second statute to stop undesignated art leaving the country in the economic crisis, and about eight thousand objects were placed beyond export under it. The literature treats the export of these scrolls as a cause of that statute; the legislative record has not been checked here, so this record records the sequence and attributes the causal claim rather than making it.The provenance is unusually complete for a Japanese painting of this age - a shrine in Wakasa by 1441, the Sakai lords of Wakasa, two generations of Sakai, a Tokyo Art Club auction in 1923, two generations of the Toda family in Osaka, and then Boston. A companion scroll believed to have been kept at the same shrine stayed in Japan and is a National Treasure. This one is recorded by its own museum as not on view. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **12th century-by 1441** Unknown; the scrolls were painted in the capital `[unknown]` (origin) No commission, patron or first owner is recorded. The scrolls first appear in the record already at a shrine in the provinces. - **by 1441-unknown** Oshio Hachiman Shrine, Wakasa Province (now Fukui Prefecture) `[documented]` (shrine holding) Documented at the shrine by 1441. The Ban Dainagon Ekotoba is believed to have been kept there with them. - **unknown-1920** The Sakai family, Lords of Wakasa Province, to Sakai Tadamichi (d. 1920) `[disputed]` (acquisition from the shrine) The Museum of Fine Arts writes that the scrolls were probably acquired from the shrine by the Sakai family. Graded disputed because the museum itself hedges the step and gives it no date. Held by Sakai Tadamichi until his death in 1920. - **1920-1923** Sakai Tadatae (b. 1883, d. 1939) `[documented]` (inheritance) Inherited from his father. Sold three years later, in the period when former daimyo families were breaking up their collections under financial pressure. - **1923-1930** Toda Yashichi, 2nd (b. 1867, d. 1930), Osaka `[documented]` (purchase at auction) Bought from Sakai Tadatae at auction at the Tokyo Art Club in 1923. No hammer price is published in the sources consulted. - **1930-1932** Toda Yashichi, 3rd, known as Toda Rosui (b. 1892, d. 1942), dealer, Osaka `[documented]` (inheritance) Inherited from his father and sold within two years. Toda Rosui was a dealer, which is the point at which the scrolls entered the trade proper. - **1932-present** Museum of Fine Arts, Boston `[documented]` (acquisition and export) Sold by Toda Rosui through Yamanaka and Company, New York, to the Museum of Fine Arts; accession date 7 July 1932; accessions 32.131.1 to 32.131.4. Funded by exchange from the William Sturgis Bigelow Collection; no price published. The export provoked public outrage in Japan and was lawful, the scrolls being undesignated under the 1929 National Treasures Preservation Law. Japan enacted the Law Regarding the Preservation of Important Works of Fine Arts on 1 April 1933, a statute directed at undesignated objects leaving the country; the reference literature links the two events causally and this record reports that link as an attribution. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **1923** Tokyo Art Club, - Estimate: Not published - Hammer: Not published in the sources consulted - With premium: Not published in the sources consulted - Consigned by Sakai Tadatae and bought by Toda Yashichi the second of Osaka. The Museum of Fine Arts records the sale and the parties but no figure, and no figure appears in the sources consulted here. Recorded as an event with an unknown price rather than omitted, because this is the only time the scrolls have been offered at public auction in their documented history. ## Open questions - Who painted the scrolls? The museum says unknown; the tradition says Tokiwa Mitsunaga; specialists say a contemporary of Mitsunaga working in Kyoto. No documentary evidence has been produced either way. - What did the Museum of Fine Arts pay in 1932, and which objects from the Bigelow Collection were exchanged to fund the purchase? Neither figure nor list is published. - What did the scrolls make at the Tokyo Art Club auction in 1923? No hammer price appears in the sources consulted. - How did the scrolls pass from the Oshio Hachiman Shrine to the Sakai family? The museum's own provenance uses the word probably, and the transfer is undated. - Were the scrolls ever considered for designation under the 1929 National Treasures Preservation Law before the 1932 sale, and if so what happened? An undesignated object was exportable, and whether anyone tried to designate these is not established. - Did the 1932 sale directly cause the 1933 statute, or merely coincide with a wave of exports that did? The outrage is documented and the law followed within a year; a direct causal chain is asserted in the literature and is not, in the sources consulted here, evidenced from the legislative record. - Was the work originally one continuous scroll later cut into four, or made as four? Accounts differ, and the answer bears on how the object should be described. ## Sources - [1] Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, collection record for 'Minister Kibi's Adventures in China (Kibi daijin nitto emaki), scroll 1', accession 32.131.1, with medium, dimensions, credit line, display status and the complete seven-step provenance from the Oshio Hachiman Shrine to the museum. Read 4 August 2026. - [2] Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, collection record for scroll 4, accession 32.131.4, carrying the same provenance and the dimensions of the fourth scroll, and citing Robert T. Paine Jr., 'The Scroll of Kibi's Adventures in China', MFA Bulletin 31, no. 183 (February 1933), p. 2, for the early provenance. Read 4 August 2026. - [3] Wikipedia, 'Kibi Daijin Nitto Emaki', for the narrative sections, the overall dimensions, the questioning of the Mitsunaga attribution on grounds of stylistic variation, the shared Wakasa shrine provenance with the Ban Dainagon Ekotoba, and the outrage in Japan at the 1932 sale. TERTIARY: to be replaced with Paine 1933 and the MFA Japanese Masterpieces catalogue of 2012. - [4] Wikipedia, 'Ban Dainagon Ekotoba', for the attribution to Tokiwa Mitsunaga, the calligraphy attributed to Fujiwara Norinaga, its designation as a National Treasure and its location in the Idemitsu Museum of Arts. TERTIARY. - [5] Wikipedia, 'Cultural Properties of Japan', for the National Treasures Preservation Law in force from 1 July 1929 and expressly intended to prevent the export or removal of cultural properties, and for the Law Regarding the Preservation of Important Works of Fine Arts of 1 April 1933, created to stop undesignated objects being exported during the economic crisis, under which about eight thousand objects in nine categories were forbidden export. TERTIARY: to be replaced with the statutes themselves and the Agency for Cultural Affairs record. - [6] Wikimedia Commons, file records for the Museum of Fine Arts reproductions of scrolls 1 to 4, each carrying a public domain statement and the museum's own object link. Licences read per file from extmetadata LicenseShortName on 4 August 2026. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.