Sho Hiroshi
- Born: 1918
- Died: 1997
- Japanese: 尚 裕 (Shou Hiroshi)
Shô Hiroshi was a great-grandson of Shô Tai, the last king of the Ryûkyû Kingdom, and was head of the Shô family for most of his life, following the death in 1923 of his father, Shô Shô. He inherited the title of Marquis (kôshaku) upon his father's death.
In 1926, he sold the family's mansion in the Kudan neighborhood to Tokyo City, and relocated the family to a new residence in the Nanpeidai area of Shibuya. The family also maintained secondary homes (bessô) in Kamakura and in Chôjamachi, Chiba prefecture, through the war.
Hiroshi later attended and graduated from Tokyo Imperial University and served as a lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Around 1960, the Shô family relocated its main residence from Nanpeidai to Tamagawa Seta in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward, and then in 1971 to the Aoyama neighborhood near Shibuya. Though the family maintained stewards at its Nanpeidai residence, since the move to Tamagawa Seta, they stopped doing so.
In the postwar period, Shô Hiroshi played a key role in keeping and sharing the Shô family's treasures. Hiroshi gifted some 74 art objects to the Tokyo National Museum in 1969, and kept another 280 or more protected in bank vaults and rented storehouses. A large collection of historical documents held today by the University of Tokyo Historiographical Institute related to the Shô family and former Ryukyuan royal court are also labeled as being from Shô Hiroshi's collection.
In 1992, he transferred the royal mausoleum Tamaudun, gardens and residence at Shikinaen, and grounds of the destroyed Buddhist temple Sôgen-ji to Naha City. In 1995-1996, he further gifted more than 1,340 items, including documents, textiles and garments, lacquerwares, and metalwork objects, to Naha City. The majority of these were then designated, collectively, as a National Treasure of Japan in 2006, under the name Ryukyu Royal Sho Family Documents (琉球国王尚家関係資料, Ryûkyû kokuô Shô ke kankei shiryô).
References
- Gallery labels, Naha City Museum of History.
- Hokama Masaaki 外間政明, "Shôke no takaramono ni tsuite" 「尚家の宝物について」, RYUKYU exhibition catalog, Tokyo National Museum (2022), 439-440.