Kentoshi-sen translates roughly to "ambassadors dispatched to Tang". It refers, not to the name of a specific ship, but to a series of nautical expeditions carried out by Japan in the 7th century. The Kentoshi-sen above is representative of the types of ships used in the expeditions. During the Japanese Nara period and the Chinese Tang Dynasty of the 7th century, Kentoshi-sen ships ferried Imperial Japanese envoys to China. The Japanese envoys included scholars, engineers, diplomats, monks, court officials and merchants. They would return from China with new ideas surrounding engineering, architecture, and vocabulary which had a significant influence on Japanese culture.
Modern pictures of Kentoshi-sen ships are based on drawings from the Toseiden emaki scrolls dating back to the 7th century. My version of the Kentoshi-sen is based on these same historical pictures. The ship plies through soft ripples of water inside a bottle of Kujira Ryukyu 20 year whiskey. The bottle rests atop a unique piece of bonsai driftwood emanating from a sandstone base.
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