Heian

A National Treasure at Tokyo's Eisei Bunko, the Kashiwa-mimizuku Raden Kura is a Heian saddle of black lacquer inlaid with shell, with a horned owl among oak leaves.

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.

A Southern Song tea caddy at the Nezu Museum, an Important Cultural Property since 1959, handed down from Ashikaga Yoshimasa to the Matsuya family of Nara.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.