Exhibition Outlines

Our museum has so far sponsored three special exhibitions focusing on a great variety of arts and crafts products of foreign origin. In this and fourth exhibition of the same line of shows, we introduce you to a wide range of gift items presented to the Imperial Family in the course its friendly exchanges with a variety of foreign countries. The items include those offered on various felicitous occasions of the Imperial Family, those presented by visiting royal families and heads of state as well as those offered to Emperor Showa, both in 1921 when His Majesty visited Europe as Crown Prince, and in 1971 when His Majesty, together with Her Majesty, toured foreign countries for the first time as the Emperor of Japan.

Included among the gifts offered in the Meiji era to the early Showa period are European paintings, sculptures, various crafts products, including glass and ceramic wares, as well as gold items and lacquer wares from Thailand, and embroideries from Turkey. Among the gifts received in the late Showa period, on the other hand, include a variety of arts and crafts products, small boxes of amethyst and silver, brooches and other ornamental items.

The items on display are all choicest representatives of the cultures of the gift-giving countries. Our sincere hope is that the visitors to the exhibition will fully enjoy the variegated charms of the exhibits themselves and, at the same time, duly appreciate the spirit of international friendship as expressed in all those gift items presented to the Imperial Family in the course of its all-important international exchange activities.