National Treasure
国 宝 一 覧Browse Japan’s National Treasures by prefecture, period, and type. Clear stories highlight what to look for at temples, shrines, castles, and museums—plus maps and travel tips.
Kao's Kanzan, a 14th-century National Treasure of early Japanese ink painting at the Sunritz Hattori Museum on Lake Suwa, shown only in select exhibitions.
Only two Fugen Bosatsu paintings rank as National Treasures in Japan. Explore Bujoji Temple's Heian masterpiece, its cut-gold kirikane artistry, and how to see it.
Deer rest among golden bush clover on this Kamakura-period lacquer box kept at Izumo Taisha. Explore its sprinkled-gold artistry, shell inlay, and how to see it.
A late Kamakura armor laced in white silk, with Fudo Myoo stenciled on its breastplate. Owned by Hinomisaki Shrine and famed for its pioneering 1805 restoration.
The Former Togu Palace in Tokyo, a Neo-Baroque palace of 1909 by Katayama Tokuma, is a National Treasure and now the State Guest House, open to visitors on set days.
Made in 1639 for Chiyohime, the shogun's two-year-old daughter, this 70-piece trousseau glitters with gold maki-e from The Tale of Genji. A National Treasure.
A National Treasure tachi forged by Bizen Saburo Kunimune in the Kamakura period, handed down in the Owari Tokugawa family and held by Nagoya's Tokugawa Art Museum.
Oda Nobunaga's prized tachi, seized from Azuchi Castle after Honno-ji in 1582. A National Treasure by Kamakura master Nagamitsu, now at Nagoya's Tokugawa Art Museum.
This National Treasure tachi by the Ko-Bizen smith Masatsune was shogun Yoshimune's 1745 retirement gift to the Owari Tokugawa, now at Nagoya's Tokugawa Art Museum.
A rare signed tachi by Mitsutada, founder of Bizen's Osafune school, given by Shogun Tsunayoshi to the Owari Tokugawa in 1698. Now a National Treasure in Nagoya.
A National Treasure tachi dated 1292 and the only blade signed Rai Magotaro, an alias of master Rai Kunitoshi. Once Ieyasu's, now at the Tokugawa Art Museum.
Named for its kitchen-knife shape, the National Treasure Hocho Masamune passed from Tokugawa Ieyasu to the Owari family. See its pierced openwork carving in Nagoya.
Japan's oldest illustrated Tale of Genji, a 12th-century National Treasure at Nagoya's Tokugawa Art Museum, shown a few weeks each November to protect its pigments.
Copied in 1160 by Fujiwara no Koreyuki, these National Treasure scrolls at the Kyoto National Museum set a complete Heian poetry anthology on ashide-e paper.
Around 1180, fourteen poets including Saigyo and Jakuren each turned a Lotus Sutra chapter into a waka. The oldest poem papers extant, kept at Kyoto National Museum.
A Tang manuscript of the Book of Han, chapter 57 on poet Yang Xiong, at Kyoto National Museum. Taboo strokes and 948 reading marks trace ten centuries of study.
A Kamakura-period National Treasure in Kyoto: Amida, gilded head to foot, rises beyond a mountain ridge. Cords once ran from his hands to believers at the deathbed.
Fujiwara no Kintō's only surviving autograph draft of the Hokuzanshō, held at the Kyoto National Museum. Its reverse hides two of Japan's oldest kana letters.
This National Treasure handscroll preserves love poems from the Kokin Wakashu in flowing kana on mica-printed Chinese paper, long credited to Ono no Tofu.
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.