Sakai has a festival which has been held annually since ancient times on the last day of the sixth lunar month. The Sumiyoshi Festival features sacred mikoshi palanquins — essentially portable shrines — of Osaka’s Sumiyoshi-taisha Shrine, which travel about 7 km to Otabisho, the temporary shrine in Shukuin, Sakai, to ward off summer epidemics.
These folding screens, in the style of the early Edo Period, offer a vivid depiction of the lively festival, showing Sumiyoshi-taisha Shrine on the left screen and the town of Sakai on the right screen. This is one of the oldest works among paintings that depict the town of Sakai, which reminisce old days of Sakai, a city of commerce.
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