Exhibition Outlines

The Museum of the Imperial Collections (Sannomaru Shozokan) is holding the 5th of a series of special exhibitions to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the enthronement of His Majesty the Emperor, titled “Transmitting Tradition - The Imperial Family Today”.

The 1st to 4th exhibition of the series were composed of art and craft objects related to the Imperial family according to each theme, but in this exhibition, we will show how the Imperial family has carefully transmitted the Imperial heritage of learning, culture and art within our country’s long history, and how Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress value and preserve the traditions of festivals and culture.

We will introduce their achievements carried out continuously over a long time with actual items and photograph panels. For example, items and photographs related to traditional events such as the Utakai-hajime (Imperial New Year's Poetry Reading), the Kosho-hajime (New Year's Lectures at Court), the article written by the Emperor titled “Early cultivators of science in Japan”, printed in Science magazine, his written papers on gobiid flshes and other publications, books by Her Majesty the Empress and a recording of her speech at the New Delhi Congress of IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People), poems and anthologies by Their Majesties, the rice planting done annually by the Emperor, and the sericulture of the Empress will be introduced. Through this exhibit, we hope to show how Their Majesties devote themselves to the transmission of traditional culture today.