The Tekagami-jō 手鑑帖 Project

A comprehensive web presentation of the Tekagami-jo calligraphy album (手鑑帖) in the Yale Association of Japan Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. For the Yale library catalog entry, click here.

Led by by Edward Kamens (Sumitomo Professor of Japanese Studies, Yale University) and Funami Kazuya (Assistant Professor, Jissen Women’s Institute), an international team of scholars is conducting in-depth research on this album of calligraphy masters’ writing specimens,  dated to ca. 1670 and regarded as one of the finest extant examples of its kind.  The Tekagamijō Project web site will include detailed information on each of the 139 samples in the Yale album, identification and biographical sketches of the named calligraphers, transcriptions, translations and assessments of the texts and their sources, as well as results of technical testing of materials.  The project, launched during academic year 2016-17, has been supported by grants from the Council on East Asian Studies and the Digital Humanities Laboratory, Yale University. Mary Gilstad (doctoral candidate, Yale University) is the managing editor of the project web site and is assisted by Avner Merzel (Yale College B.A. 2020). Team members include faculty, staff and graduate students affiliated with Yale University, UC Santa Barbara, Leiden University, Nihon University, the National Institute for Japanese Literature, and Keiō University (Shibundō) and curators, administrators, laboratory directors, conservators and scientists on the staffs of the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, the Yale University Libraries, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

For further information please contact edward.kamens@yale.edu