Shadow and Grace
Memories of the Floating World

Drawing on the rich collections of the museums in the Centre-Val de Loire region, Hôtel Cabu opens the Asian cultural season on a regional scale, which will run until 2027. On this occasion, the institutions in the Musées en Centre-Val de Loire network are collaborating to showcase their Chinese and Japanese collections: for the first time since 1901, the Orléans museums are presenting a series of works by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, the only one of its kind in France! The exhibition Shadow and Grace. Memories of the Floating World is an immersion in Japan during the Edo period (1603-1868), with a focus on female representations inukiyo-e. L'Ombre et la Grace traces stylistic and technical exchanges between Europe and Japan up to the ^19th century. The exhibition focuses on the urban culture of the Edo period (1603-1868). The female figure is at the heart of ukiyo-e (images of the Floating World). These productions emphasize the ephemeral beauty of the world. Prints played an essential role in the dissemination of these sublimated images both in the archipelago and in France during the second half of the ^19th century. While this idealized image was for a long time the only one retained in Europe, the reality of life in the pleasure district was much darker.

As a result of a vast inventory carried out between 2021 and 2023, nearly 2,500 Asian works of art and objects, many of them rarely exhibited, have been identified in the region's museums. The "Asie en Centre-Val de Loire" project aims to highlight this heritage, and explore the historical links between the Centre-Val de Loire and the countries of the Far East, from the ^17th to the ^20th century.

A regional project by the Musées en Centre Val de Loire network