The scrolls can be viewed here
1. Kinjō Tennō go-sokui-rei emaki 今上天皇御即位禮絵巻 -(‘Illustrated Handscroll of the Enthronement Ceremony of the Present Emperor’) and
2. Kinjō Tennō daijōsai emaki 今上天皇大嘗祭絵巻 -(‘Illustrated Handscroll of the Festival of Thanksgiving of the Present Emperor’)
2 volumes - Pair of handscrolls in paulownia storage box; colour woodblock print, mica, gofun in various places. I added a few photos taken with a microscope objective (60x magnification). The pigment/ink can be clearly observed.
A description and scanned images here: https://www.touken-world.jp/search-calligraphy/art0002530/
Print by Urushibara Sanjirō 漆原三次郎
Text by Ikebe Yoshikata 池辺義象; illustrators: Yoshizaki Hokuryō 吉崎北陵 et al.
Date: Taishō 大正 4 (1915), size 36 cm x 980 (first scroll) x 940 (second scroll) cm
Condition: extremely well preserved, there are no wood worm holes, no tears. There are some creases and folding at the end of the second scroll and very minor foxing or stains in 3 scenes. Any damage can be seen in photos, all scened photographed.
The scroll appear in various museums in Japan and Europe (notably in British Museum here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1917-0423-0-1 )
The following description is taken from "Japan's Book Donation to the University of Louvain
Japanese Cultural Identity and Modernity in the 1920s, edited by Jan Schmidt, Willy Vande Walle
The first scroll Kinjō Tennō gosokui-rei emaki does not mention the author or any printing or publication data. At the end of the second scroll Kinjō Tennō daijōsai emaki, there is a notice dated November 10,Taishō 4 (1915), signed by Ikebe Yoshitaka. The colophon proper states the following:
Revised (kenkō 検校) by: Commissioner for the Grand Ceremonies (of Enthronement and Thanksgiving) 大禮使事務官: Tada Kōmon 多田好問, noble of the fourth rank A, order of the third rank 勲三等.
Text and calligraphy (ekotoba narabi ni sho 絵詞並書): Ikebe Yoshitaka, compiler in the Temporary Compilation Bureau of the Imperial Household Ministry 宮内省臨時編修局編修, noble of the sixth rank B.
Painting (tansei 丹青): Yoshizaki Hokuryō 吉崎北陵, Kobori Tomone 小堀鞆音, Murata Tanryō 村田丹陵, Sekiyasu Koresuke 関安之輔, assistants, nobles of the fifth rank B.
This work is published by the Association for the Commemoration of the Imperial Enthronement 御即位記念協会.
The head of this committee is Viscount Kiyo’oka Nagakoto 子爵 清岡長言 (1875-1963), a paramount specialist of court ceremonies and rituals. His delegate (shuji 主事) is Kimura Tadashi 木村正.
The woodblock engraver (chōkokusha 彫刻者) is Katayama Kiseki 片山奇石; the printers (insatsusha 印刷者) are Urushibara Sanjirō and Urushibara Eijirō 漆原栄次郎; assistant (hojo 補助) is Takeda Katsunosuke 武田勝之助, and the mounter (daikyōshi 大経師) is Katō Tōju 加藤藤樹.
The enthronement is the most important ceremony at the imperial court. It is to be enacted meticulously and by following strict rules. Contrary to popular belief that they go back to times immemorial, these rules were actually often adapted and modified.
The Jōgan gishiki 貞観儀式 (Procedures for Ceremonies of the Jōgan Period, compiled second half of the ninth century) provided a guiding framework, which, along with the tenth-century Engi-shiki 延喜式, codified the rituals of the imperial family and its attendant clans. This ceremony rather resembled the New Year Ceremony that used to be performed at the Chinese court during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). When Emperor Meiji succeeded to the throne in 1868, the ceremony was fundamentally changed and reshaped as a Shintō ritual. The garments were also adapted to reflect this change. The emperor no longer wore the konben 袞冕, a robe and cap in a Chinese-looking style, but the typically Japanese robe sokutai 束帯 and cap of the type ryūei 立纓. According to the ordinance of 1889, the ceremony of enthronement was supposed to be held in Kyoto, and according to the ordinance of 1909 (tōkyokurei 登極令), the ceremony of enthronement and that of thanksgiving had to be held in the same period, in the autumn or spring following the end of the mourning period for the previous emperor. The most important aspect of this ceremony is the ritual in the throne room (shishinden no gi 紫宸殿の儀). In this pair of scrolls, the most important moments in
the ritual programme are illustrated with careful attention to detail.
Ikebe Yoshitaka (1861-1923) was a specialist in Japanese literature and history of law. He was the son of a samurai who served the feudal lord of the fiefdom of Kumamoto. His gō 号 (sobriquet) was Tōen 藤園. After the Seinan Rebellion (1877), he began his studies at the Jingū kyōin 神宮教院, a school of Shintō theology. In 1882, he enrolled in the Department of Classical Japanese Studies at the University of Tokyo. Starting in 1886, he successively became librarian at the Imperial Library, teacher at the First Higher Middle School, the Higher Pedagogical Institute for Girls, and member of the Historiographical Commission. From 1898 to 1901, he studied in France. After returning to Japan, he became lector at the Imperial University of Kyoto in 1903;
in 1914, compiler in the Temporary Compilation Bureau of the Imperial Household Ministry; in 1917, a member of the Imperial Bureau for Poetry; and in 1918, an official in the Temporary Imperial Bureau for History. Ikebe is one of the earliest specialists in modern academia of legal and institutional history 法制史 in Japan. This may also explain why Wada Mankichi classified this illustrated scroll under the donation’s division of Law and Institutions.
Copies of our pair of scrolls can also be found in the British Museum, Kōgakukan daigaku Shintō hakubutsukan 皇學館大学神道博物館 in Ise, and the National Museum of Japanese History 国立歴史民俗博物館 in Sakura.
The pair of scrolls is a simplified pictorial survey of the salient moments in the various ceremonies, probably produced to be distributed as a souvenir among the important guests present at the ceremonies, or to be offered to important persons or prestigious institutions.
The first scroll Kinjō Tennō gosokui-rei emaki begins with three prefatory mottos (daiji 題字) in four-character lines by high officials in the imperial household. Each of the mottos (daiji) echoes a direct or indirect cosmological reference, meant as covert references to the emperor. They are redolent of the Confucian-inspired Classical Chinese texts extolling the greatness of the emperor, whose solemnity transcends space and time.