Edo

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.

Discover the Seisetsu Shōchō Bokuseki 'Yo Kantaiji Zōsu Hōgo' at Eisei Bunko in Tokyo. This Important Cultural Property is a Dharma instruction brushed by the Yuan-Chinese Zen master Seisetsu Shōchō (1274–1339), who came to Japan in 1326 and shaped early Japanese Zen. Explore its history, artistic highlights, and visitor information.

An Important Cultural Property at the National Archives of Japan, compiled from castaway Daikokuya Kodayu's account of Russia, with illustrated scrolls and maps.

A late sword guard by Tsuchiya Yasuchika, signed Tōu. In pierced suaka copper, drying fishing nets meet a flight of plovers, touched with his rubbed gold inlay.

Hosokawa Family Documents at Tokyo's Eisei Bunko: the 2013 designation of 266 papers holds 58 Oda Nobunaga letters; a 2025 addition raised the total to 9,612.

A bokuseki scroll at the Tokyo National Museum: a verse brushed by the Southern Song Zen monk Beijian Jujian in a Suzhou pavilion in 1229, an early tea scroll.

Discover the Warikōdai Chawan, a 16th-century Korean tea bowl with a daringly cross-cut foot ring, designated an Important Cultural Property and housed at the Ebara Hatakeyama Museum in Shirokanedai, Tokyo. A masterpiece beloved by industrialist-tea master Hatakeyama Sokuō.

The Gotoh Museum in Setagaya, Tokyo, preserves the National Treasure 'Six Patriarch Shouldering a Pole,' a thirteenth-century Southern Song ink painting bearing the seal of the painter Chokuō. Rendered in the delicate mōryōga style with washes of pale ink and selective accents of dark ink, the scroll depicts Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch of Chan Buddhism, at the life-changing moment he hears the Diamond Sutra. An inscription by Chan master Enkei Kōmon dates the work with unusual precision. Discover the history, artistic value, and visiting information for this masterpiece.

Held by the Nezu Museum in Tokyo's Minami-Aoyama district, Fishing Village at Sunset (attributed to Muqi) is a National Treasure and one of the supreme achievements of Southern Song ink painting. A scene from the famous Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers, it bears the seal of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu and is exhibited only rarely, every few years.