Building a New Palace for the Emperor (litho)

Building a New Palace for the Emperor. The earliest palaces were merely wooden huts with thatched roofs. But in the eighth century, when the court was at Nara, and afterwards at Kyoto in the ninth century, architecture made great strides under the influence of Chinese architects and artists. The buildings were then composed of wood, often highly ornamented, and roofed with red tiles. It was the custom in medieval Japan to abandon the residence of the Emperor at his death, and to build a new palace for his successor. The presence of a dead body in it was said to render it unclean, and no longer fit for habitation. Illustration for Hutchinson's History of the Nations (Hutchinson, c.1920). Note: Image has been digitally enhanced to facilitate repro.