Tokugawa Nariaki
Late Edo period (19th century )
Donated by the Homma family
Tokugawa Nariaki (1800–60) was the ninth daimyō of the Mito domain, and the father of the last Tokugawa shogun, Yoshinobu. A prominent figure in the late Edo period, he was a skilled leader who implemented successful reforms in finance, administration, public works, industry and the military.
This calligraphic work was painted by Nariaki in the reisho-tai or clerical style of writing, which was one of his specialties. Taken from The Confucian classic treatise Xiao Jing (The Classic of Filial Piety), this phrase teaches that wealth can be preserved by “being affluent but not wasteful,” an idea which became one of the Homma family’s central precepts. Sakai Tadataka, the eighth lord of the Shōnai Domain, gifted this work to Kōki, the fifth-generation head of the Homma family.