Events
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Limited timeSculpture Until 6 July 2025
View Event Description & Conditions- Dates 10 April 2025, 9:30AM - 6 July 2025, 5:00PM
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Event Details
Japanese Gallery (Honkan) Room 11
Japan has three main traditions of sculpture: Buddhist deities, Shinto deities, and portraits of people. Buddhism was introduced to Japan from the Korean Peninsula in the 6th century, together with sculptures of Buddhist deities. These sculptures were made primarily for worship. Making a sculpture was also an “act of spiritual merit” that would help one’s prayers to be answered.
In contrast, Shinto is the indigenous religion of Japan. Since ancient times, people believed that Shinto deities dwell in natural features like mountains and rivers, and rarely depicted them as humanlike sculptures. Even when a Shinto shrine had a sculpture for worship, the priests usually kept it hidden from view out of respect.
Some portrait sculptures were also worshipped, as they showed deified monks or samurai. Others were made to remember the dead and pray for their salvation. This gallery features works mainly from the Heian (794–1192) and Kamakura (1192–1333) periods, when many of Japan’s most admired sculptures were created.
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Limited timeFamily Gallery All About Elephants at the Museum Until 1 June 2025
View Event Description & Conditions- Dates 8 May 2025, 9:30AM - 1 June 2025, 5:00PM
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Event Details
Japanese Gallery (Honkan) Room T2
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.
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Limited timeCostumes of Bugaku Performances Until 22 June 2025
View Event Description & Conditions- Dates 8 May 2025, 9:30AM - 22 June 2025, 5:00PM
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Event Details
Japanese Gallery (Honkan) Room 9
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.
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Limited timeThe Art of Fashion | 17th–19th century Until 22 June 2025
View Event Description & Conditions- Dates 8 May 2025, 9:30AM - 22 June 2025, 5:00PM
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Event Details
Japanese Gallery (Honkan) Room 10
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.
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Limited timeMetalwork Until 15 June 2025
View Event Description & Conditions- Dates 8 May 2025, 9:30AM - 15 June 2025, 5:00PM
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Event Details
Japanese Gallery (Honkan) Room 13
This exhibition provides a historical overview of Japanese metalwork from the Heian (794–1192) to the Edo (1603–1868) period. Objects are displayed by category, such as Buddhist ritual implements, mirrors, tea kettles, objects with designs in cloisonné, decorative fittings, and okimono ornaments. Visitors are invited to view the beauty of metals such as gold, silver, copper, and iron, as well as the shapes they were crafted into, and the designs they were freely embellished with.
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Limited timeArt of the Modern Era| Late 19th–first half of 20th century Until 27 July 2025
View Event Description & Conditions- Dates 8 May 2025, 9:30AM - 27 July 2025, 5:00PM
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Event Details
Japanese Gallery (Honkan) Room 18
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.
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Limited timeDevelopment of Figural (Haniwa) Tomb Figurines Until 28 September 2025
View Event Description & Conditions- Dates 8 May 2025, 9:30AM - 28 September 2025, 5:00PM
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Event Details
Japanese Archaeology and Special Exhibition (Heiseikan) Japanese Archaeology Gallery
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.
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Limited timeChinese Buddhist Sculpture Until 19 April 2026
View Event Description & Conditions- Dates 8 May 2025, 9:30AM - 19 April 2026, 5:00PM
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Event Details
Asian Gallery (Toyokan) Room 1
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.
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Limited timeArt of the Western Regions Until 8 June 2025
View Event Description & Conditions- Dates 8 May 2025, 9:30AM - 8 June 2025, 5:00PM
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Event Details
Asian Gallery (Toyokan) Room 3
This room mainly features artifacts discovered at Silk Road sites by the Japanese Ōtani expeditions at the start of the 20th century. Works are exhibited on rotation and illustrate the wide range of art and religious objects found in the diverse cultures along the Silk Road.
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Limited timeBuddhist Art of Korea Until 21 September 2025
View Event Description & Conditions- Dates 8 May 2025, 9:30AM - 21 September 2025, 5:00PM
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Event Details
Asian Gallery (Toyokan) Room 10
Buddhism began to spread on the Korean Peninsula during the 4th and 5th centuries. This section introduces Buddhist art from the Three Kingdoms period (57 BC–668 AD), the Unified Silla dynasty (669–935), and the Goryeo dynasty (935–1392), including gilt-bronze statues, bricks, roof tiles, and ritual implements.
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Limited timeGilt Bronze Buddhist Statues, Halos and Repoussé Buddhist Images Until 19 April 2026
View Event Description & Conditions- Dates 8 May 2025, 9:30AM - 19 April 2026, 5:00PM
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Event Details
The Gallery of Horyuji Treasures Room 2
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.