East Asia, Japan, Edo period, ca. first half of the 19th century CE. A carved and painted wooden figure of a seated nobleman in formal court dress, with a tall black court cap (eboshi), a broad robe with traces of gilded and coloured pattern, and hands joined before him holding a ritual baton. He sits on a low black lacquered platform.

The figure represents Prince Shōtoku Taishi (574–622 CE), regent of Japan, a fervent patron of Buddhism and celebrated for modernising the government administration, including the ‘Seventeen-Article Constitution’. Shōtoku was venerated as a cultural hero and even as an incarnation of the bodhisattva Kannon, and images of him were kept in temples and household shrines throughout the Edo period.