Tokugawa Ieyasu’s Battle Standard
Standards like this gold fan were designed to be immediately visible on the battlefield. They were used to show the locations of military commanders during combat. Unarmed foot soldiers were tasked with keeping the standards aloft while staying close to the commander, who was typically on horseback.
Battle standards were made of painted wood or fabric and came in a variety of shapes, such as gourds, bells, lanterns, half-moons, and umbrellas, among many others; Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616) used this gold fan. It is 2.2 meters long, making it one of the largest standards that survives today. Four lengths of silk fabric sewn together along the edges constitute the body of the fan. Its 10 bamboo ribs are coated in black lacquer and are bound with a black leather band at the pivot joint. The standard can be attached to a pole with the three black leather straps on one side.
This standard was also used by the fourteenth Tokugawa shogun, Iemochi (1846–1866). It was donated to Kunozan Toshogu Shrine in 1894 by Tokugawa Iesato (1863–1940), the first head of the Tokugawa family after the fall of the shogunate.