Large White Horse Hakuba Japan Edo period

Very rare and large White Horse, Hakuba in Japanese, carved wood covered with gofun and painted. Braided horsehair tail and mane. Wrought iron bit.
Mounted on a stained wood base decorated with wooden wheels.
Japan, Edo period, 18th/19th century.
In Shinto, the horse occupies a privileged place as the sacred mount of the kami.
As early as the Nara period (710-794), the cult of the shinme, the divine horse, was established. It consisted of offering a live horse as votive offering to a shrine to symbolically serve as a steed for the deities.

The Engishiki, a 10th-century collection of laws and rites, stipulates precisely the color of the horse to be offered according to prayers: a black horse to invoke rain, and a white horse to obtain the return of good weather.
Traditionally, white symbolizes the sun and brightness, while dark horses evoke clouds and precipitation.
More broadly, the color white is synonymous with purity in Shinto, reinforcing the sacred character of the white horses called Hakuba. These horses are also perceived by the Japanese as supernatural beings heralding good omens.
Historically, horses dedicated to shrines were carefully maintained and fed in sacred stables, only leaving the stables on the day of the rite, when they were sent to the kami to serve as mounts.
These expensive offerings were particularly common among feudal lords wishing to obtain divine favor.
With the rising cost of maintaining horses, symbolic substitutes appeared as early as the medieval period. Worshippers began offering equestrian representations of varying sizes depending on their income, in the form of terracotta or wooden figurines, then painted wooden panels depicting a horse, called ema, meaning horse image.

Although ema have since adopted various motifs, the original term has persisted to refer to these votive plaques still found in temples.

Today, few shrines still maintain real sacred horses (ikegami), a practice that has become exceptional in Japan, with only about ten recorded shrines. Nowadays, life-size white wooden sculptures have mainly replaced the live horses, traditionally housed in votive stables called Hakuba-sha, or white horse houses.

These horses, designed to be moved using casters under their bases, participate in rare religious festivals called Uma Dashi Matsuri. Preserved in Shinto shrines, they are now extremely rare and are only brought out exceptionally, for the duration of a ritual or sacred procession.
In Tomo-no-ura, Hiroshima Prefecture, the Hassaku no Uma Dashi festival constitutes a unique exception : every September, a few families from local clans present their own white horses mounted on wheels at this festival. This parade, intended to invoke the protection of the deities over newborns, is the only known festival where such horses, usually associated with a shrine, are privately owned. Their rarity - approximately 10 of large size - is accentuated by the strict conservation requirements: regularly repainted, protected against insects, and structurally reinforced, they require constant, often costly, maintenance.
Thus, white horses represent not only a religious tradition deeply rooted in Japanese spirituality, but also a rare and precious artistic heritage, a living testimony to a thousand-year-old history and a still vibrant ritual practice. It's extremely rare to find them commercially available outside of Japan, especially in this exceptional size.

Overall dimensions with base: height 148cm x 122cm x 46cm
Base only: 12cm x 122cm x 46cm