National Treasure

A fan-shaped Song-dynasty painting of one apple branch, its blossoms ranging from bud to full bloom. Now a National Treasure at Tokyo's Ebara Hatakeyama Museum.

A National Treasure at the Tokyo National Museum: a Southern Song three-scroll set by Liang Kai of a gaunt Buddha and snowy peaks, held by the Ashikaga shoguns.

A Southern Song scroll attributed to Ma Yuan, this National Treasure shows a lone traveler hurrying under a folded umbrella as wind and rain cross towering peaks.

The fullest of the Five Great Man'yōshū manuscripts, this Heian set of twenty booklets is named for a collation note of 1184 and written by some fifteen hands.

Ritual deposits found beneath Kofuku-ji's Central Golden Hall in Nara in 1874: gilt bronze vessels, mirrors, gold, and coins, about 1,400 pieces, the richest known.

A National Treasure of the Maeda Ikutokukai: a 12th-century manuscript of the Kokin Wakashu preserving the Kiyosuke text. Its attribution to Kiyosuke is debated.

A National Treasure handscroll of the Kokin Wakashu, copied in the mid-11th century by the Third of three hands once attributed to Ki no Tsurayuki himself.

A National Treasure and the oldest complete Kokin Wakashu, dated 1120, at the Tokyo National Museum. Its kana sits on dyed paper printed with mica and gold foil.

A Heian National Treasure at the Okura Shukokan, Tokyo: the kana preface to the Kokin Wakashu, brushed in cursive across thirty-three dyed, decorated paper sheets.

Housed at the Sonkeikaku Bunko in Komaba, Tokyo, the National Treasure Sanchō Shinkan brings together autograph letters by three emperors — Fushimi, Hanazono, and Go-Daigo — who lived through the turbulent transition from the late Kamakura period to the Nanboku-chō era. This article introduces one of Japan's most remarkable assemblages of imperial calligraphy and living historical voice.

The Tokyo National Museum holds the National Treasure Haboku Sansui-zu (Broken-Ink Landscape) by Sesshū Tōyō, painted in 1495 when the master was 76. This 148.6 cm hanging scroll, given to his pupil Josui Sōen and inscribed with a personal preface plus poems by six Gozan Zen monks, represents the pinnacle of Muromachi splashed-ink landscape painting. Discover its history, artistry, and visitor information.

A Heian scroll on decorated paper owned by the Maeda Ikutokukai, a National Treasure since 1951, keeping eight poems of the anthology attributed to Kinto.

Discover the Aloeswood Wood-Marquetry Box, an 8th-century National Treasure housed in the Gallery of Horyuji Treasures at Tokyo National Museum. This rare Nara-period sutra box features precious aloeswood, ivory, and ebony arranged in an elegant checkerboard pattern, embodying the artistic legacy of the Silk Road in Japan.

Held by the Seikado Foundation in Tokyo, this tachi signed 'Kanenaga' is the finest surviving work of the first-generation Kanenaga, founding master of the Tegai school of Yamato province in the late Kamakura period. Designated a National Treasure in 1952, the sword is prized for its unshortened signed tang and the brilliant crystalline particles of its temper line. It is displayed at the Seikado Bunko Art Museum in Marunouchi, Tokyo.

The Dojigiri tachi by the Heian smith Yasutsuna at the Tokyo National Museum, a National Treasure since 1951 and one of the Five Great Swords under Heaven.

Fujiwara no Kintō's Hokuzanshō guided Heian court ritual. The Maeda Ikutokukai's National Treasure copy, twelve scrolls, is attributed to Fujiwara no Korefusa.

A complete ten-scroll Heian Lotus Sutra, the Sensōji-kyō keeps its gold-flecked paper, inlaid axles, and woven cords intact, now held at the Tokyo National Museum.

This 11th-century National Treasure, kept for centuries at Chikubushima on Lake Biwa, copies the Lotus Sutra over paper drawn with gold-and-silver birds and flowers.

Preserved at Waseda University Library in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward, this National Treasure is the sole surviving volume of a lost 100-volume Chinese Confucian commentary. A Tang-dynasty handscroll that reached Japan in the Nara period, it bears the personal library seal of Empress Kōmyō. Discover its extraordinary journey, scholarly importance, and how to experience it today.

Housed at Eisei Bunko in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, the National Treasure Raden Shigure-gura is a Kamakura-period black-lacquered saddle whose pine and kudzu motifs, inlaid in iridescent shell, conceal five Japanese characters that spell out a famous love poem by the poet-monk Jien from the Shin Kokin Wakashū anthology.