Muromachi

A 15th-century ink painting at Taizoin, Kyoto: Josetsu's answer to shogun Ashikaga Yoshimochi's riddle of catching a catfish with a gourd, with 31 Zen poems.

A National Treasure ink scroll at Konchi-in, Kyoto, dated 1413: an imagined valley retreat under poems by six Zen monks, Japan's oldest surviving studio painting.

Discover the Hōjō Shōhekiga at Jukō-in, Daitoku-ji Temple in Kyoto — 46 panels of National Treasure sliding door paintings by Kanō Eitoku and his father Shōei. Learn about these Momoyama-era masterpieces, their connection to Sen no Rikyū, and how to visit during special exhibitions.

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.

A thirteenth-century Southern Song painting of water buffalo attributed to Yan Ciping, owned by the Sen-oku Hakukokan; a National Treasure since 1957.

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.

Court robes, maki-e boxes, mirrors, 29 combs, and silver toiletries offered to the Kumano gods around 1390 survive nearly complete at the Kyoto National Museum.

At the Kyoto National Museum, this gold-on-indigo scroll is the sole survivor of a handwritten Goryeo Buddhist canon vowed in 1006 by a Korean queen dowager.

A National Treasure album at the Kyoto National Museum, holding 240-plus calligraphy fragments from the 8th to 16th centuries, once used to authenticate old writing.