Founding of the Nation

[3] Based on the myth of the cave of the sun goddess from the Kojiki, the painting resides at the Musée Guimet in Paris, where it is known as Le coq blanc or The white cockerel.

[1] In the Kojiki version, after the assembled kami took counsel, "the long-singing birds of eternal night" (generally understood as a periphrasis for "the barndoor fowl") were enticed to crow, the mirror Yata no Kagami and string of curved jewels Yasakani no Magatama were commissioned, divination was performed using the shoulder blade of a stag and the bough of a cherry tree from Mount Kagu, and the mirror, string of jewels, and blue and white cloth offerings were hung from an uprooted sakaki tree.

[1][7] Replete with allusions to this story, Kawamura Kiyoo's painting features a mirror, magatama, sword, suzu, sakaki with blue, white, and red cloth cords, cherry blossoms, a blue-grey Sue ware footed ritual vessel adorned with a deer, and an enza or circular woven straw mat.

[note 2] With Indologist and Sanskrit scholar Sylvain Lévi acting as intermediary, the painting was presented on 30 December that year to the Jeu de Paume, the museum created in 1922 out of the foreign section of the Musée du Luxembourg.

In attendance at the handover ceremony at the Louvre were minister Pierre Marraud and ambassador Mineichirō Adachi, as well as Lévi who delivered the celebratory address.