Urashima Returns Home from the Dragon Palace

This diptych illustrates a scene from a popular Japanese fairy tale. One day, the main character, Urashima Tarō, observes children toying with a turtle on the beach. Pitying the turtle, he buys it and releases it in the ocean. A few days later, the grateful turtle returns to take him to the underwater Dragon Palace, where Princess Otohime thanks him personally for his kindness. Days pass in her company, and he decides to return to the surface to tend to his elderly parents, much to the disappointment of the princess, who gives him a mysterious box he must never open. Returning home, he realizes that he has been gone many years, and his parents have perished, along with everyone else he knew. Not recalling the princess’s words, he opens the box and turns into a white-haired old man.