Edo

A Southern Song Jian bowl at the Museum of Oriental Ceramics in Osaka, silver spots packed tightly across both surfaces. Once owned by the regent Hidetsugu.

A Southern Song tenmoku bowl at the Fujita Museum in Osaka, its black glaze scattered with haloed spots. Alone among yohen bowls, it is mottled inside and out.

An Important Cultural Property of Japan, this Edo-period sword guard (tsuba) by Nara Toshinaga (1667–1737) is among the supreme achievements of Japanese metalwork. Its high-relief carving and luxurious mixed-metal inlay depict the warrior Omori Hikoshichi carrying a demon woman — the vengeful spirit of Kusunoki Masashige — in a wraparound composition drawn from the Taiheiki chronicle. This guide introduces the work, its master craftsman, and where to encounter comparable tsuba masterpieces in Japan.

Called the Masamune of Osaka for his steel's clarity, Inoue Shinkai forged this Important Cultural Property in 1676, its tang bearing the imperial chrysanthemum.

Discover the Important Cultural Property katana inscribed 'Yamashiro Daijō Fujiwara Kunikane / An Auspicious Day in the Eighth Month of Kan'ei 5' (1628), held privately in Osaka. Forged by the first-generation Sendai Kunikane—official swordsmith of Date Masamune—just one year after he received his court title, this masterpiece revived the ancient Yamato Hōshō tradition of straight-grain forging.

Designated as an Important Art Object, this katana was forged in 1614 by the first-generation Echizen Yasutsugu, official swordsmith to the Tokugawa shogunate, using imported nanban iron in Edo. A pioneering example of foreign iron in Japanese swordsmithing and a historically significant blade created in the year of the Siege of Osaka Castle.

Seventy-six fusuma panels by Kano school artists from the early 17th century adorn four rooms of Daian-ji Temple's Main Hall in Sakai City, Osaka. Designated as an Important Cultural Property, these gold-ground polychrome and ink paintings are the sole surviving barrier paintings from Sakai — once one of Japan's wealthiest trading cities. The collection includes the legendary 'Pine with Added Branch' featured in prewar Japanese textbooks.

Osaka's Former Ogata Kōan Residence, known as Tekijuku, is Japan's only surviving Dutch studies academy. Designated in 1964, it is open daily except Mondays.

On the old Kishū highway in Izumisano, the Oku Family Residence preserves a 1727 main house, a long gatehouse and storehouses. Designated 1969; no regular opening.

Completed in 1647, the shoin at Kanshinji is a rare early Edo temple reception hall, kept with the garden, gate and kitchen of its walled compound south of Osaka.

Gansenji in Kaizuka, Osaka, governed a self-ruling temple town and briefly headed Honganji. Its main hall, gate, and drum tower are Important Cultural Properties.

Kumata Shrine's First Hall in Osaka was built in 1690 for Kasuga Taisha in Nara and moved here in 1711, a single-bay kasuga-zukuri Important Cultural Property.

The Former Sugiyama Family Residence, a National Important Cultural Property in Tondabayashi Jinaimachi — Osaka's only Important Preservation District for Traditional Buildings — is the oldest surviving townhouse in the district, dating to the mid-17th century. Once home to one of the eight founding families who governed the town and prospered as sake brewers, this grand merchant house blends rural farmhouse architecture with refined reception rooms, and is also celebrated as the birthplace of Meiji-era poet Isonokami Tsuyuko.

Built in 1708, the main hall of Daikai Shrine at Sumiyoshi Taisha is the oldest surviving Sumiyoshi-zukuri sanctuary, predating the National Treasure halls.

The Main Hall of Daianji Temple in Sakai City, Osaka, is an Important Cultural Property believed to incorporate timbers from the lavish residence of Naya Sukezaemon, a legendary Momoyama-era merchant. Rebuilt in 1683 in the shoin-zukuri style with all-cypress construction, the hall preserves 76 magnificent Kano school partition paintings on gold leaf, offering a rare glimpse into Sakai's golden age of international trade.

An early Edo farmhouse in Kumatori, south Osaka, with one of the largest earthen-floored work spaces in the Kinki region. Designated in 1964, it is free to enter.

Maniin, a sub-temple of Kongo-ji in Kawachi-Nagano, Osaka, housed Emperor Go-Murakami from 1354. Its shoin was listed in 1965, its gate and walls in 2019.

Toshintei, the tea house at Minase Jingu in Shimamoto, Osaka, fills each ceiling coffer with a different lamp-wick plant. An early Edo room, designated in 1926.

The Kuzunoha Inari Shrine Main Hall, nestled within Abe Oji Shrine in Osaka's Abeno Ward, is a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property originally built as the Main Hall of Otokoyama Hachiman Shrine in Osaka's historic Semba merchant district. Relocated in 1907 and surviving the wartime destruction that obliterated Semba, this exquisite Edo-period structure — painted in vivid vermillion with polychrome accents — is the sole remaining shrine hall from one of Japan's most important commercial centers. Discover its rich architectural heritage and the legendary connection to Kuzunoha, the mystical fox mother of the famed onmyōji Abe no Seimei.

The nagayamon at the entrance to Kobayashi Ichizo's Ikeda villa is a late-Edo long-house gate, said to have been relocated here in 1936 from a village headman's estate.