Japanese Armour from the Collection of Wiktoria and Adam Jurgilewicz

When I was a young boy, my earliest experience of the world of the samurai was by viewing the works of the Japanese master filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. Pictures like Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, or Ran incited my imagination and inducted me into an aesthetic completely different from what had been familiar. It was in those films that I first saw the armour and helmets of the samurai, which in time became my passion.

The collection of Japanese armour that we hold today was born many years later in Japan, in a small antique shop in the Izu Peninsula. It was there that my wife – co-initiator of this lifelong undertaking – and I purchased our first set of samurai armour. At the end of our conversation with the owner, he presented us with a small gift – a dragonfly-shaped iron maedate. He said our determination reminded him of that insect, which Japanese tradition perceived as a creature that always moved forwards and never drew back as it flew.

In Japanese culture, in addition to determination, the dragonfly was also a symbol of courage, persistence, and victory. It was referred to as kachimushi – “the victory insect” – and ancient chronicles had given Japan the poetic name Akitsushima – the “Dragonfly Island”.

Thus the dragonfly motif became the central theme of our collection. Over time, we came to notice it on helmets, cuirasses, coats, guards, quivers, stirrups, and sword fittings. What may seem a minor decorative detail effectively united a variety of artefacts into a single story about the aesthetics, symbolism, and spiritual world of the samurai.

The collection became a reality through our passion, but also thanks to the wonderful people around us. Exhibitions of it are always an honour to both of us and an invitation to the viewers to see samurai armour primarily as works of art and vehicles of symbols.

Together, we continue to uncover the history hidden in these objects and explore a path that always leads forwards, just like a dragonfly’s flight.