Life-sized Figures by Kamehachi Yasumoto as Gifts to Museums by Japanese Entrepreneurs <Articles>

In the late 19th century, Japanese collections housed at ethnographic museums in Europe and the USA included life-sized figures exhibiting aspects of Japanese life, in particular, kimonos. Most of these figures were purchased by people visiting Japan at around that time. Six figures can be attributed to Kamehachi Yasumoto III, who learnt realistic representation and simple structure in creating Iki-ningyo from his father. Around 1900, he modified the masks he created to have a neutral, delicate expression and refined the body structure to one that would look better in kimonos. His acknowledgement of contemporary demands provided him a platform to display his figures in international expositions and department stores. The donation of Yasumoto’s figures to Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow, UK, and Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, USA, indicates that Japanese entrepreneurs were committed to improving the figures representing Japan to correct the false perceptions about their country. Yasumoto was commissioned the figures because of his elegant style and reputation established at the time his father was active in the field. The reserved expression on the faces of his models were perceived positively, resulting in the figures being accepted as museum displays for over 60 years.本研究はJSPS科研費JP18K0062の助成を受けたものです

Physical Relation of Source I to IRc2 in the Orion KL Region

We present mid-infrared narrow-band images of the Orion BN/KL region, and N-band low-resolution spectra of IRc2 and the nearby radio source "I." The distributions of the silicate absorption strength and the color temperature have been revealed with a sub-arcsecond resolution. The detailed structure of the 7.8 micron/12.4 micron color temperature distribution was resolved in the vicinity of IRc2. A mid-infrared counterpart to source I has been detected as a large color temperature peak. The color temperature distribution shows an increasing gradient from IRc2 toward source I, and no dominant temperature peak is seen at IRc2. The spectral energy distribution of IRc2 could be fitted by a two-temperature component model, and the "warmer component" of the infrared emission from IRc2 could be reproduced by scattering of radiation from source I. IRc2 itself is not self-luminous, but is illuminated and heated by an embedded luminous young stellar object located at source I.Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures. Minor corrections had been done in the ver.2. Accepted for publication in PAS

Ionization of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Molecules around the Herbig Ae/Be environment

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Crystalline Silicate Feature of the Vega-like star HD145263

We have observed the 8-13 $\mu$m spectrum (R$\sim$250) of the Vega-like star candidate HD145263 using Subaru/COMICS. The spectrum of HD145263 shows the broad trapezoidal silicate feature with the shoulders at 9.3 $\mu$m and 11.44 $\mu$m, indicating the presence of crystalline silicate grains. This detection implies that crystalline silicate may also be commonly present around Vega-like stars. The 11.44 $\mu$m feature is slightly shifted to a longer wavelength compared to the usual 11.2-3 $\mu$m crystalline forsterite feature detected toward Herbig Ae/Be stars and T Tauri stars. Although the peak shift due to the effects of the grain size can not be ruled out, we suggest that Fe-bearing crystalline olivine explains the observed peak wavelength fairly well. Fe-bearing silicates are commonly found in meteorites and most interplanetary dust particles, which originate from planetesimal-like asteroids. According to studies of meteorites, Fe-bearing silicate must have been formed in asteroidal planetesimals, supporting the scenario that dust grains around Vega-like stars are of planetesimal origin, if the observed 11.44 $\mu$m peak is due to Fe-bearing silicates.Comment: accepted for Publication in ApJ

Direct detection of a flared disk around a young massive star HD200775 and its 10 to 1000AU scale properties

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