Collection URL: https://horyuji-kondohekiga.jp/
この写真ガラス原板は、昭和10年（1935）、文部省の法隆寺国宝保存事業部による修理事業の一環として美術印刷会社便利堂によって撮影されたものです。しかし昭和24年（1949）1月26日、不慮の火災により金堂壁画が焼損いたしました。
この写真ガラス原板は焼損前の金堂壁画の姿を伝える貴重な資料となり、又、写真の歴史的、学術的価値が評価され、平成27年（2015）には国の重要文化財に指定されています。そして平成28年から5年をかけて、国庫補助と朝日新聞文化財団の助成を受け、修理が実施され、写真ガラス原板のデジタル化が行われております。
The glass photographic plates were taken in 1935 by Benridō, a firm from Kyoto specializing in artistic printing. This effort was part of a larger project helmed by the Ministry of Education aimed at preserving the National Treasure of Hōryūji Temple and its cultural properties, large numbers of which are also designated National Treasures. Yet little over a decade later, a calamitous fire broke out on January 26, 1949, severely damaging the murals in the Hōryūji Kondō.
In recognition of the value and importance of the glass photographic plates — as precise records of the Kondō murals prior to their significant damage in the fire, as resources offering a rich testimony of a chapter in photography’s history, and as works of art in their own right — the plates were designated Important Cultural Properties of Japan in 2015. Then, starting in FY 2016 and continuing over the course of five years, the glass photographic plates were conserved and digitized. These ambitious efforts were supported by a national subsidy for the conservation of cultural properties and by a grant from the Asashi Shimbun Foundation.