Change of Exhibits,TNM Collection Exhibitions: Starting from April 22, 2025 (Tue)
TNM Collection Exhibitions at Tokyo National Museum are rotated almost every week. This page provides the latest information on the change of exhibits.
* Some works are exhibited for a longer period of time.
Japanese Gallery (Honkan)
A style of dance called bugaku was introduced from continental Asia to Japan in the late 700s. It evolved in Japanese imperial court and temples as a unique style of performance, so its costumes largely reflect the culture of the imperial court. There are various types of Bugaku performances, such as Dance of the Left, which originated in China and usually feature red costumes. In contrast, Dance of the Right, originated in Korea and typically feature blue costumes. This exhibition focuses on costumes with round motifs from Dance of the Left and Dance of the Right, featuring elegant colors and designs influenced by court culture.
Japan's traditional clothing, kimono, are based on kosode — the outer wear of the Edo period (1603–1868). At first, the court nobility and samurai wore kosode under other clothing. But from about the 15th century, the samurai began using them as daily outer wear. In the 17th century, kosode became the most common clothing for men and women of all classes.
Wealthy women placed orders for custom-made kosode at luxury clothing stores. They often chose the patterns from clothing design books that were published and widely circulated. Together with these kosode, they wore hairpins and combs to accent their elaborate hairstyles.
In contrast, men wore kosode with understated patterns like stripes or checks.
Their usual fashion accessories were a small case (inrō) and a toggle (netsuke) for securing the case to the sash. This gallery features kosode and accessories, together with prints and paintings (ukiyo-e) showing how people wore them and how fashions changed over time.
Every year, the Tokyo National Museum holds a joint thematic exhibition related to animals together with other institutions in Ueno. Along with the Ueno Zoological Gardens and the National Museum of Nature and Science, we are proud to introduce this year's thematic exhibition on elephants.
The present exhibition is divided into smaller sub-themes, namely: “Prologue: Encountering Elephants,” “Elephants and Religious Beliefs,” “The World of Ivory,” and “Wonderful Elephant Shapes.” By engaging with the elephant-themed works from Japan and various other countries in Asia, we hope that you can come to understand how humans have interacted with elephants throughout history, as well as how this relationship has been expressed through decorative art objects.
Tokyo National Museum has more than artworks and archeological artifacts. The collection also includes records, which provide valuable insights into history and the cultures of different ethnic groups. This diversity stems from the Museum’s origins as a comprehensive institution in 1872. It was even home to animal, plant, and mineral specimens, although these were moved to the National Museum of Nature and Science in 1925.
The extensive collection of historical records at Tokyo National Museum now includes maps, diagrams, texts, photographs, ink rubbings, and copies of artworks. These items, dating mainly from the 17th to 20th century, shed light on politics, society, culture, transportation, and scenery in Japan. Here we display a selection of these items under different themes throughout the year.
Drastic changes in the late 19th century created new challenges for artists. The samurai government that had strictly regulated contact with the outside world collapsed in a civil war. Japan's new leaders announced the start of the Meiji era (1868–1912), engaging with the world and reforming their nation to be more like “the West” (mainly Europe and the United States).
These leaders soon realized that works produced in Japan were not seen as “fine art” in the West. Artisans often mounted paintings on sliding doors and folding screens, but this practice made them look like furniture to Europeans and Americans. Japan's ceramics, lacquerware, metalwork, and textiles were also labeled as “decorative art” rather than “fine art.”
In response, artistic traditions were changed to meet Western standards. Japan's leaders established schools of fine art, organized national exhibitions, and urged artists to participate in world fairs. They intended to show the world that Japan was a “modern” nation with sophisticated arts and culture. The works on display reflect how Japanese artists met these challenges.
Japanese Archaeology and Special Exhibition (Heiseikan)
Terracotta statues known as haniwa were placed on large burial mounds that were created in great numbers during the Kofun period (ca. 3rd century–ca. 7th century). Most haniwa of women show them from the waist up, making this full-length depiction unusual. This woman appears to be wearing a sleeveless garment with wave-like patterns over a plain, long-sleeved one. Her legs are hidden by a skirt decorated with vertical lines. Women of the preceding Yayoi period (ca. 5th century BC–ca. 3rd century AD) wore clothes similar to one-piece dresses. In the Kofun period, however, garments separated into top and bottom sections as seen here were introduced from China and Korea.
Her outfit is also more elaborate than it first appears: Her hair is made up in a topknot unique to women of the time and is held in place with a comb. She also wears a headband and two large earrings with a cluster of beads above each one, as well as a beaded necklace and bracelets. A knife or something similar is at her hip. Judging from the lavish attire, this haniwa probably depicts a woman of a high social standing who is participating in some kind of elaborate ceremony such as a funerary procession or rite.
Haniwa are terracotta figurines that were stood up on ancient burial mounds called kofun. Around the 3rd century at the end of the Yayoi period, pedestal-shaped terracotta objects that were placed on burial mounds began to change form. By the time keyhole-shaped burial mounds were first created in the latter half of the 3rd century, these objects had developed into cylindrical and pot-shaped haniwa.
The earliest representational haniwa, which depicted houses, were created in the mid-4th century, followed by those portraying armor, shields, quivers, and parasols, as well as ships and fowl. Despite increasing variety and changes in the way haniwa were positioned on burial mounds, house-shaped ones were always placed in the center, therefore playing a unique and important role. From the mid-5th century, new haniwa in the shapes of various people and animals were also created. These included shrine maidens, horses, warriors, boars, water fowl, and dogs. They were positioned around the perimeters of burial mounds as though depicting stories. These various representational haniwa, which evolved from simple cylindrical ones, are believed to have played important roles in funerary rituals.
The advent of burial mounds coincided with the emergence of a specific kind of tomb sculpture, called haniwa. These sculptures are assumed to have played an important role in ancient funerary rites, and were a common feature of burial mounds until the practice declined after early societies abandoned the construction of colossal, keyhole-shaped burial mounds. This section of the gallery features house-shaped tomb sculptures, which were the dominant type during the 5th century. The lineup also includes illustrative examples of three other types of tomb sculptures: those in the shapes of weapons and household items, cylindrical sculptures, and wooden sculptures.
Asian Gallery (Toyokan)
Buddhism began to spread in China around the turn of the first millennium, about 500 years after its founding in India. In the 5th and 6th centuries, the number of Chinese Buddhists rapidly increased and numerous temples were established. This gallery presents Buddhist statues created from the 5th to 9th century, a golden age in the history of Chinese sculpture.
This section of the gallery explores the history of Chinese ceramics, spanning the 7th to 19th century. The objects on view are rotated on a regular basis, but typically feature examples of fine porcelain made for the imperial household at the Jingdezhen imperial kilns alongside objects produced for commercial purposes in private kilns and elsewhere.
This section of the gallery features stone relief carvings from China. They were excavated from tombs found in eastern China and date to the Eastern Han dynasty (1st–2nd century). The tombs consisted of a subterranean chamber to house the sarcophagus with a shrine above ground for bereaved families to perform rituals. The stone walls, pillars, and supports of these tombs were decorated with bas-relief scenes of everyday life, historical events, and contemporary belief systems.
The current exhibition presents Chinese landscape paintings that emulate the classics. They are based on the work of Ni Zan (1301–1374), a Chinese painter known for his minimalist, unpopulated landscapes of sparse trees and distant mountains, separated by a quiet body of water. Illustrated only with light ink, his landscapes became famous for their muted and refined style depicting a complete detachment from all worldly affairs. Ni Zan’s work left a profound influence on later generations of painters, who emulated his style in their own way. Enjoy the variations of his landscapes on display in this gallery.
The Gallery of Horyuji Treasures
The Kanjō-ban (gilt bronze banner for the Kanjō ceremony) is one of the most outstanding items of The Hōryūji Treasures. It is believed to be the item listed as "one gilded Kanjō ceremony article" in The History of the Buildings of Hōryūji and The Inventory of the Temple’s Properties compiled in 747. The original is displayed here together with another metal banner, the “Small Gilt Bronze Ban”.
All of the 48 works of gilt bronze Buddhist statues in the Hōryūji Treasures are no more then 30–40 cm in height, and many of them are believed to have been used for private worship by local rulers. The halos date from around the same time as these gilt bronze statues, but they are displayed separately.
Repoussé Buddhist images could be mass-produced by placing a thin sheet of bronze over a relief image of a Buddhist divinity and hammering it into shape. In Japan, repoussé images flourished from the second half of the 7th to the early 8th century and were mostly hung on the walls of temple halls or kept in small shrines for private worship. The repoussé Buddhist images among the Hōryūji Treasures are a very important collection, not only in terms of age and number, but also for the variety of images.
Gigaku was an outdoor Buddhist ceremony in which actors wearing large masks performed skits while parading to the accompaniment of music. Gigaku was introduced into Japan from the Korean kingdom of Baekje in the first half of the 7th century. After flourishing in the 7th and 8th centuries, however, it lost popularity and eventually ceased to be performed. The Hōryūji Treasures include 19 Gigaku masks made from camphor wood, nine made from paulownia wood, and three made with the dry lacquer technique. The camphor masks were most likely created between the second half of the 7th and the beginning of the 8th century, while the rest are thought to have been made in the 8th century.
On display only on Fridays and Saturdays
The majority of metalwork objects are Buddhist implements, which are classified into various categories according to their use. Kuyōgu are objects used for offerings and Sōgu are items used daily by priests. There are also ritual implements used exclusively at Esoteric Buddhist temples and bon’ongu used to strike the hours or to give a signal. They mainly date from the Asuka and Nara periods with later examples reaching up to the Edo period. A significant number of pieces were made in China and the Korean Peninsula or were strongly influenced by works from these regions. The shape and decorative design of the Dragonhead Pitcher are evidence of an active cultural exchange between Tang China and Persia. Other masterpieces include the Incense Burner with a "Magpie Tail"-shaped Handle (which is the oldest example of an incense burner with a handle in Japan), Bronze Mirrors with Seashore Designs which were donated by Empress Kōmyō to Hōryūji Temple in 736, and the Set of an Ink Cake Stand, Water Holder, and Spoon which are said to have been used by Prince Shōtoku when he wrote the Hokke Gisho annotations on the Lotus Sutra.
The works of calligraphy held in the Gallery of Horyuji Treasures primarily consist of records donated to the temple by Empress Kōken (713–770), works imported from China during the Tang dynasty (618–907), and Horyuji Temple’s records of daily events as well as legends concerning Prince Shōtoku.
The textiles held in the collection date from the mid-7th to 8th century and consist mainly of Buddhist ritual banners (ban), table mats (joku), and robes or other clothing worn by monks. The textiles also include fragments whose original uses are unknown, including rare ancient textiles, such as warp-faced compound weaves, tapestries, warp ikat fragments, complex gauze (ra), and plain- and twill- weave silks.
Dyed fabrics include examples of all three major dyeing techniques form the 8th century: tie-dyeing in a dot pattern (kōkechi), wax-resist dyeing (rōkechi), and clamp-resist dyeing (kyōkechi). The collection also features examples of early embroidery, braiding, and rugs.