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Hello! Could somebody please help identify the statue in Fukuoka (Japan)? What does the inscription say on the front? Who is the person represented and who is the sculptor? Thanks a lot in advance! The images are attached. Misha

This guy has nothing to do with art as far as I can tell, but I found some web info describing this statue as being of Kuniomi (national statesman) Hirano (1828-1864), said to be a samurai in Fukuoka in the late Edo period, who helped instigate the overthrow of the Tokugawa shoguns but was killed before the job was finished.

Efforts to wring a decent English account of this historical figure out of Google proved beyond my abilities. I believe the third and fourth characters down on the pictured plaque also are a title, meaning something like 'the second', but my operative language skills are in Chinese, not Japanese, wherein the meanings often are different.

Hope this helps,

Bill H.

try running the following through google translate.
http://www.fukuoka-good.com/great/hirano2/hirano2top.html

Thanks a lot!

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