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Keio University has holdings of, and manages, a large number of cultural properties, collected by various means since the time of its foundation. The Century Cultural Foundation transferred ownership of a portion of its collection to Keio University in February 2009; later donating the entirety of its remaining holdings in March 2021. This brought the Century Akao Collection to a total of 2,325 pieces, including works of calligraphy, painting, metalwork, lacquerware, and sculpture. One of these, "Portrait of Priest Kukai" (Kamakura Period, Keio University Century Akao Collection item AW-CEN-001854-0000) is currently undergoing restoration work. This restoration project is supported by three sponsors: the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, the Asahi Shimbun Foundation, and the Sumitomo Foundation.

"Portrait of Priest Kukai," the subject of the current restoration work, was created in the fourth year of Katei (1238) during the Kamakura Period (1185-1333). The inscription "Priest Gonkai, Fourth Year of Katei, January 18, 1238" can be found on the bottom left of the piece. Gonkai (1173-1251) was a Shingon sect priest active in the early Kamakura Period, and a son of Kujo Yoritsune (aka: Fujiwara no Yoritsune), the fourth shogun of the Kamakura shogunate. Gonkai was a prelate at Toji Temple in Kyoto where he was appointed one of the three high priests in 1238, the same year in which this piece was composed. While the reasons above make the original piece an invaluable artifact, folding, missing silk, the inadequate nature of previous repair work, stains, mold, and separation of adhesives led to restoration work being commissioned to Shugo Co., Ltd., with the restoration itself taking place at the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo.

Over the course of the two-year restoration process to be completed in 2022 and 2023, Keio Museum Commons (KeMCo) staff are set to visit the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo on several occasions, where they will engage in detailed discussions with the technicians regarding the details of the restoration. The meeting which took place in July 2022 covered a wide range of topics, including how the silk added in past restorations should be handled, the colors of the lining paper, and the multicolored patterns for the mounting. The lining paper is applied to the back of the paper on which the picture itself is painted and significantly influences the overall impression the piece conveys by allowing the colors to show through. A mounting strip is a fabric surrounding the painting of a hanging scroll, which protects the painting and also has the effect of decoration. As it is planned to completely restore the painting, this necessitates choices which take into account the final tone that the painting will assume following restoration. For this and other reasons, the restoration process implies a large number of judgement calls, with everyone involved engaging sincerely with the restoration work to consider if particular aspects of the repairs can be deemed scientific, and if objective judgments are possible.

Century Akao Collection
https://objecthub.keio.ac.jp/en/collection/1