National Treasure

A National Treasure attributed to the elusive smith Gō Yoshihiro, this 64.8 cm blade passed from Hideyoshi to the Maeda lords. Edo appraisers declined to price it.

A 12th-century Heian National Treasure at the Tokyo National Museum, covered with ox-cart wheels half-sunk in flowing water in gold lacquer and rare shell inlay.

Compiled in 905 for Kanzeon-ji of Dazaifu, this three-scroll National Treasure lists its halls, statues, estates and clergy, now at Tokyo University of the Arts.

An 11th-century draft handscroll at the Tokyo National Museum, copying a court poetry contest of around 889-893, with ink deletions and unfinished verses visible.

A National Treasure at the Nezu Museum, this 11th-century handscroll copies a Buddhist sutra in graceful wayo calligraphy on dyed gampi paper flecked with gold.

A small ink scroll the Chan master Xutang Zhiyu brushed near age eighty for a Japanese monk, slashed by a servant in 1637 and now a National Treasure in Tokyo.

Volume nine of the Yupian, a Chinese dictionary lost in China, survives in Japan as a Tang scroll. This Waseda National Treasure bears a Buddhist text dated 1021.

At the Tokyo National Museum, the gilt Dragon-Head Ewer fuses a Persian form, four engraved Pegasus, and an East Asian dragon. A National Treasure from Hōryū-ji.

Fujiwara no Teika's autograph diary of Retired Emperor Go-Toba's 1201 pilgrimage to Kumano, a National Treasure full of weary complaints and admired calligraphy.

Brushed in 1325 by the Yuan master Gulin Qingmao for his disciple Betsugen Enshi, this farewell verse, once owned by Oda Nobunaga, is now a National Treasure.

Compiled for Tang emperor Taizong in 631 and lost in China, this fifty-volume statecraft anthology survives as thirteen Heian scrolls on dyed, gold-ruled paper.

A pictorial Yayoi bronze bell at the Tokyo National Museum, said to come from old Sanuki, its six panels engraving deer hunts, herons, a granary and grain-pounders.

A Tang-dynasty handscroll at the Tokyo National Museum, a National Treasure since 1954, copying in regular script a score for the zither piece Elegant Orchid.

Three National Treasure scrolls of the Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish, written in the Nara period in oversized characters on paper once thought to hold relics.

An eighth-century Kengukyo handscroll in oversized characters, long ascribed to Emperor Shomu. One of the few Daishomu scrolls left whole, rarely shown in Tokyo.

The original seventh scroll of the Ippen Hijiri-e is kept apart from its set, at the Tokyo National Museum. The 1299 silk scroll shows the dancing nembutsu in Kyoto.

Just 24.2 cm tall, this National Treasure at Tokyo's Nezu Museum is a peak of Southern Song bird-and-flower painting, attributed to Li Anzhong and shown only rarely.

Painted by the Song court artist Li Di and dated 1197, this National Treasure pairs a white and a red cotton rose, one flower as it shifts colour across a day.

Japan's oldest surviving arhat paintings, this 11th-century National Treasure of 16 silk scrolls at the Tokyo National Museum glows with soft, back-dyed color.

A National Treasure at Tokyo Nezu Museum, this rare Kamakura scroll shows Nachi Falls alone as a sacred deity, fusing yamato-e and Chinese ink-and-gold landscape.