Muromachi

A Southern Song celadon vase of shimokabura form, a Japanese National Treasure with a smooth, crackle-free pale-blue glaze. Its kiln is still debated by scholars.

A National Treasure near Tokyo: a Southern Song printing of the Hanshu in 61 fascicles, holding the earliest reliable Chinese record of Japan, the Wa people.

A complete Southern Song printing of the Book of the Later Han, kept in Sakura, whose account of the eastern peoples names Queen Himiko and an embassy of 57 CE.

A National Treasure near Tokyo: the Song-dynasty Shiji printed by Huang Shanfu, the oldest complete copy of the three-commentary edition, all 130 chapters intact.

Brushed in 1124, this is the oldest surviving Zen calligraphy. Cut in two long ago, its front half is National Treasure number one, the supreme tearoom scroll.

Designated an Important Cultural Property in 1980, this 15th-century domaru armor at the Tokyo National Museum is a rare survival in which the cuirass, helmet, and large shoulder guards remain together as one original ensemble. Its distinctive katatsumadori lacing combined with the omodaka (water plantain) motif represents the artistic peak of Muromachi-period armor making.

Discover the Matsuya Katatsuki, an Important Cultural Property of Japan — a Chinese-made shouldered tea caddy that passed through the hands of shoguns and tea masters for over 500 years. Now housed at the Nezu Museum in Tokyo's Aoyama district.

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.

Brushed in 1325 by the Yuan master Gulin Qingmao for his disciple Betsugen Enshi, this farewell verse, once owned by Oda Nobunaga, is now a National Treasure.

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.

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 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.

Discover Jinkenki, an Important Cultural Property consisting of 12 handwritten diary volumes by a Kōfuku-ji temple abbot, chronicling 15 years of political upheaval and daily life in Sengoku-era Yamato Province. Housed at the National Archives of Japan in Tokyo.

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.

Six Muromachi measuring boxes from Horyuji, now at the Tokyo National Museum, each counted as one sho yet hold 1.47 to 1.87 litres, from before standard units.

Seven matched gold fittings of peonies and lions, attributed to Goto Yujo, mounted on a guardless short-sword scabbard assembled for the Kaga Maeda house in 1649.

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.