Important cultural property

Owned by the Reizei-ke Shiguretei Bunko Foundation in Kyoto and designated an Important Cultural Property, this set of six bound volumes preserves the private waka anthologies of six celebrated Heian poets—Sosei, Kanesuke, Muneyuki, Henjō, Takamitsu, and Komachi—copied onto luxurious karakami (Chinese-style decorated paper) printed with mica-shimmering arabesque patterns. Marginalia by Fujiwara no Teika confirm its role as a working reference for one of Japan's greatest poet-editors, making it a treasure that unites courtly aesthetics with the foundational history of Japanese poetry.

Discover the Important Cultural Property Chikusen Bonsen Bokuseki, Kurin Oshō Himon, preserved at Chōfukuji in Kyoto. This 1346 hanging scroll bears a memorial stele inscription brushed by the Chinese émigré Zen master Chikusen Bonsen for his teacher, the Yuan-dynasty Chan master Kurin Seimu. Explore its history, calligraphic value, and the dharma-brother bond that brought it to Chōfukuji.

Discover the Important Cultural Property 'Letter by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (Dated April 13),' an ink-on-paper correspondence revealing the personal voice of Japan's legendary warlord who unified the nation in the 16th century.

Preserved at Kenkun Shrine on Mount Funaoka in Kyoto, the autograph manuscript of the Shinchō-kōki (15 volumes; Important Cultural Property) was brushed by Ōta Gyūichi, a retainer who served Oda Nobunaga personally. Covering 1568 to 1582 in one volume per year and bearing an afterword by Konoe Iehiro dated 1699, it is regarded as the author's final, definitive version. Discover the eyewitness chronicle that underpins all modern study of Nobunaga, and the historic shrine that holds it.

The Sumiyoshi Maki-e Desk, an Important Cultural Property owned by Ninna-ji Temple in Kyoto, is a magnificent lacquerware piece produced from the Momoyama to early Edo period. Its gold maki-e designs depict pines within the sacred precincts of Sumiyoshi Shrine accompanied by waka poetry — a sophisticated utae (picture-poetry) tradition. Currently on loan to the Kyoto National Museum, it is exhibited periodically during special exhibitions.

Discover the Sunshōan Shikishi 'Sukahara no Ason,' an Important Cultural Property at Kyoto's Nomura Museum. This Heian-period kana calligraphy fragment from a Kokin Wakashū codex inscribes a poem attributed to Sugawara no Michizane on lustrous Chinese karakami paper, ranked among Japan's Three Great Shikishi.

Preserved at Shokoku-ji in Kyoto, this Important Cultural Property is a hexagonal cast bronze hanging lantern with an inscription dated to Tenbun 21 (1552). Its fire chamber, pierced with openwork sprays of plum and bamboo, draws on the East Asian tradition of the Three Friends of Winter and embodies the refined craftsmanship of late Muromachi metalwork. Encountered during themed exhibitions at the Jōtenkaku Museum, it offers a quiet, luminous window onto Zen visual culture.

Discover Choshuki, an Important Cultural Property held by Reizei-ke Shiguretei Bunko in Kyoto. These four scrolls—the diary of Heian aristocrat Minamoto no Moromitsu, copied around 1221 by the celebrated poet Fujiwara no Teika—capture rituals, imperial pilgrimages and politics at the dawn of the insei era.

The Ninna-ji Kuronuri-tebako Shōgyō is an Important Cultural Property comprising scrolls, codices, and folded books of esoteric Buddhist texts stored in black-lacquered boxes. These documents preserve the rituals of Ninna-ji's imperial Shingon lineage in vivid, irreplaceable detail.

The forty bronze mirrors excavated from the Mitarashi Pond at Mt. Haguro, an Important Cultural Property held at Kyoto's Hosomi Museum, were once cast as votive offerings into a sacred mountaintop pond in Yamagata. Mostly late Heian-period wakyō with lyrical bird and plant motifs, they embody Japan's distinctive water-spirit worship and the refined courtly aesthetic of the twelfth century.

Preserved at Tenkyū-in, a sub-temple of Kyoto's great Myōshin-ji, the Lotus Sutra Dhāraṇī Chapter brushed in 1325 by Madenokōji Nobufusa—court noble of Emperor Go-Daigo and one of the celebrated 'Three Bō of the Later Age'—is a designated Important Cultural Property. Written just after Nobufusa returned from his daring diplomatic mission to Kamakura, the scroll bridges medieval Japanese calligraphy, devotional Buddhism, and the politics of the late Kamakura court.

Discover the five Wooden Standing Goho-jin Statues of Raigo-in, a Sennyu-ji sub-temple in Higashiyama Kyoto. These Important Cultural Property guardian deities flank what is said to be Japan's oldest Sanbo Kojin image, a deity long venerated by the imperial family for safe childbirth, and are now entrusted to the Kyoto National Museum.

Discover the Important Cultural Property "Hotei-zu" (Painting of Hotei) by Kano Masanobu, founder of the renowned Kano school, with a poetic inscription by Zen monk Keijo Shūrin. Learn about this exquisite Muromachi-period ink painting owned by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs in Kyoto.

Designated a National Important Cultural Property, this collection from the late fifth-century Butai No. 1 Tumulus in Maebashi—including house-shaped haniwa, hundreds of talc miniatures, and rare clay food-offering vessels—vividly evokes a Kofun-period funerary ritual. The items, owned by the State, are on view at the Gunma Prefectural Museum of History in Takasaki.

Discover the Important Cultural Property artifacts from Ama-Miyayama Kofun in Takatsuki, Osaka—including five bronze mirrors, one bearing the oldest dated inscription found in Japan (235 AD), possibly among the legendary "100 mirrors" gifted by Wei China to Queen Himiko of Yamatai.

Discover the Kumano Junisha Gongen Mishōtai, an Important Cultural Property featuring thirteen Buddhist deities on a gilded bronze mirror disc. Explore the beauty of Shinto-Buddhist syncretism at Nara National Museum.

A 31-cm Nabeshima porcelain dish at Kyushu National Museum. Red and white peonies rise from a Taihu rock in a ribbed bowl, made at Saga's secret kiln c. 1680-1700.

Held at the Kyushu National Museum, this Important Cultural Property is a Yuan-dynasty Chinese tea bowl from the 13th–14th century. A rare kiln effect at the boundary of its black and brown glazes produces a silvery 'rainbow' band that gave the bowl its name. Its provenance traces back to the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa.

Discover the Ota Family Residence (Otake Jutaku), an Important Cultural Property in Taragi, Kumamoto. This late Edo-period thatched farmhouse showcases the unique L-shaped "kagiya" architecture of the Hitoyoshi-Kuma region and the legacy of 700 years of Sagara clan rule.

An 1832 stone girder bridge in Amakusa, Kumamoto, carried on forty-five pillars over a tidal river. A rare form in arch-building Kyushu, on a 1637 battlefield.