Found portraits of the King of Ryukyu and their ownership
Ogoe (御後絵, Oki: Ugui) are portraits of the kings of the Ryukyu Kingdom. The ogoe of successive kings of the second Sho dynasty were enshrined in Engakuji Temple, a royal family temple (Rinzai sect) located near Shuri Castle.
However, during the Meiji period (1868–1912), they were moved to the Nakagusuku Palace (Nakagusuku Udun), the main residence of the former royal family, the Marquis Shō family, in Okinawa. Of the 19 successive kings, there seem to have been 17 ogoe, excluding the 2nd King Shō Seni (r. 1477) and the last King Shō Tai (r. 1848–1879).
In 1925, Kamakura Yoshitarō (1898–1989) visited the Nakagusuku Palace to examine the ogoe, and photographed 10 of them. These are the black-and-white photographs that have survived to this day.
The paintings were kept in the Nakagusuku Palace, but were lost after WWII. In 2000, on the occasion of the Okinawa Summit, they were registered on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) list of stolen artifacts, but until now they have not been found. On March 15, the news that six ogoe paintings were found and returned from the U.S. came as a great surprise. Three of these paintings were split from a single piece, so in effect there are four pieces.
They consist of the 13th King Shō Kei (r. 1713–1751), the 18th King Shō Iku (r. 1835–1847), and two unknown pieces.
