HIROHITO & KOJUN: HIROHITO (1901-1989) Emperor Showa of Japan 1926-89 & KOJUN (1903-2000) Empress Consort of Emperor Showa of Japan.

An exceptional, very fine pair of vintage signed 9.5 x 12.5 photographs by Emperor Hirohito and Empress Kojun individually, the images depicting them both standing in formal three quarter length poses, the Emperor wearing a suit and the Empress in traditional Japanese dress. Signed by both with their names alone, in Japanese characters, in bold, dark fountain pen inks to light areas of the images. Individually framed and glazed in the original attractive sterling silver presentation frames, both featuring the Imperial Japanese seal at the head, to overall sizes of 12 x 15 each. Both are contained in their original wooden boxes. A rare pair of signed portraits. EX

Provenance: The present photographs were presented to Thomas Clayton Davis (1889-1960) Canadian Lawyer, Judge & Diplomat, while serving as the Canadian Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Japan, June 1954 - March 1957.

Prince Hirohito married his distant cousin Princess Nagako Kuni (the future Empress Kojun) on 26th January 1924. Empress Kojun was Empress Consort from 1926 to 1989, making her the longest lived Empress Consort in Japanese history.

Hirohito, or Emperor Showa as he is more commonly known in Japan, began his reign whilst Japan was already one of the world's great powers. He was head of state under the Constitution of the Empire of Japan during Japan's imperial expansion, militarisation and involvement in World War II. During the post-war period Hirohito became the symbol of the new state and Japan's recovery, and by the end of his reign, Japan had emerged as the world's second largest economy.