Folding Screen 〈Ono Michifu Brush/〉

Byōbu Dodai: A 1,000-Year-Old Calligraphy Masterpiece by Ono no Michikaze

Tucked away within the Sannomaru Shōzōkan, the museum standing quietly at the eastern edge of Tokyo's Imperial Palace, is a slender handscroll that changed the course of Japanese art. It is called Byōbu Dodai — literally "folding-screen drafts" — and it was inked by the brush of Ono no Michikaze (also known as Ono no Tōfū) in the year 928. Designated a National Treasure of Japan in 2021, this single scroll preserves the living hand of the calligrapher who is credited with creating the elegant, flowing Japanese-style script known as wayō. For visitors with an interest in classical East Asian art, literature, or simply the quiet beauty of a master's brushwork, a visit to see this treasure is a journey back to the golden age of the Heian court.

Historical Background: A Commission from the Emperor

The story of Byōbu Dodai begins in the eleventh month of 928, during the reign of Emperor Daigo (885–930). According to the historical record Nihon Kiryaku, the emperor ordered a new set of six folding screens to be made for the imperial palace. For this prestigious project, he summoned two of the most accomplished men of letters of his day: the scholar Ōe no Asatsuna (886–957) was instructed to compose Chinese-style poems suited to the screens, and the calligrapher Ono no Michikaze (894–966) was entrusted with writing them out in a beautiful hand.

Michikaze was just thirty-five years old at the time, and already regarded as the finest brush of his generation. The poems, eight seven-character regulated verses and three seven-character quatrains, were to be copied onto small decorative colored-paper panels called shikishi-gata, which were then to be pasted onto the screens. The finished six screens that adorned the imperial palace have long since been lost to time. What survives, remarkably, is Michikaze's own working draft — the very scroll we know today as Byōbu Dodai.

The scroll carries its own history of careful transmission. A colophon added at the end of the scroll by Fujiwara no Sadanobu (1088–?), a fifth-generation descendant of the great calligrapher Fujiwara no Kōzei, records that Sadanobu purchased it, along with another National Treasure scroll of white-script poems, from the wife of a sutra copyist on an autumn morning in 1140. Centuries later, in 1925, the work was presented to Emperor Taishō by the family of the Meiji-era statesman Inoue Kaoru, and it has been preserved in the Imperial collection ever since.

Why It Was Designated a National Treasure

Japan has an extraordinarily rich calligraphic heritage, yet relatively few works are attributed with certainty to Ono no Michikaze's own hand. Byōbu Dodai is considered the finest and most reliable of them all. The reasons for its designation as a National Treasure in 2021 are rooted in art history, documentation, and the unusually intimate glimpse the scroll offers into a master at work.

Highlights: What to Look For

Visiting the Sannomaru Shōzōkan

The Sannomaru Shōzōkan (The Museum of the Imperial Collections) is situated inside the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace, just a short walk from Tokyo Station. It holds a wide range of artworks and craft pieces that have been handed down through the Imperial Family, and a rotating selection of its treasures — including Byōbu Dodai when its turn comes — is displayed in its galleries. Because of the delicate nature of the scroll, it is not on permanent view; checking the museum's current exhibition schedule before a visit is strongly recommended.

Entry to the East Gardens and the museum grounds involves a short bag check, and visitors should allow extra time for this. Photography rules vary by exhibition, so please confirm on arrival. The museum is closed on Mondays and Fridays, along with certain imperial occasions, so planning ahead is wise.

Surrounding Attractions

The location of the museum places it at the heart of a remarkable concentration of cultural sites. Within the East Gardens themselves, visitors can stroll through the preserved ruins of Edo Castle's innermost keep, take in the seasonal gardens, and enjoy the unique atmosphere of walking the grounds of the Imperial Palace. Just outside the Ōtemon gate, Tokyo Station's historic red-brick Marunouchi façade is an architectural landmark in its own right. A short walk brings visitors to the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (MOMAT) near the Takebashi gate, the Kitanomaru Park area, and the Nippon Budōkan. For those who wish to pair classical art with classical food, the Marunouchi and Ōtemachi districts offer everything from traditional Japanese sweets shops to refined kaiseki restaurants.