In front of the Imperial Palace (the Day after the February 26th Incident)
皇居前（2.26 クーデターの翌日）
- Birth Year
- 1913
- Death Year
- 2007
- Date
- 1936 (printed in 1985)
- Technique, Material, Format
- gelatin silver print
- Dimension
- 30.2 x 45.5 cm
- Category
- Photograph or Moving Image by JapanesePhotographer/Artist
- Inventory Number
- 85-PHJ-037
The February 26th Incident was an attempted coup d'état perpetrated by young Imperial Japanese Army officers seeking to restructure the country nation. It played out between February 26 and 29, 1936, and this photo was taken in the afternoon of the day after the incident began, near the site of the former Babasaki Gate at the Imperial Palace. Beyond the silhouette of a man wearing a bowler hat is the empty Imperial Palace square, with a large sun approaching the horizon. The accumulated snow conveys not only the frigidness of the day, but also the tension in the air. Kuwabara Kineo later wrote that he hid his camera under his Japanese-style cloak to take the photo because “with martial law imposed the military police were being annoying.” Of the many photographs the then-amateur Kuwabara took of pre-war and post-war Tokyo this is one of his best-known.
(OSAWA Sayoko)