About

Masterpieces of Japan is an independent digital archive prototype that introduces Japanese art, craft and cultural heritage to audiences in Japan and around the world.

It is not an official website of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, any public body, or any museum, and it has no affiliation with the owners or institutions holding the works shown.

Names, designations, dates, makers, collections and materials are published on the basis of cited sources — never from AI guesswork or memory.

A National Treasure or Important Cultural Property designation is shown only when we could confirm it on the corresponding record of the Agency for Cultural Affairs' database of nationally designated cultural properties. Other facts draw on Wikidata, museum information and Wikipedia; each object page lists its sources together with the fields they support.

Anything we could not confirm is left out. If you find an error, please let us know.

We only use images whose creator, photographer, source and licence we have checked on the individual Wikimedia Commons file page. Appearing in a Wikipedia article is never, on its own, treated as permission.

Whether a work is out of copyright and whether a particular photograph of it is free to use are treated as separate questions, checked photo by photo. Image URLs are never guessed.

Credits for every image appear on each object page and on the Image Credits page.

YouTube films are included only from clearly identified official channels — the Agency for Cultural Affairs, museums, craft associations and other rights holders — using YouTube's official embed in privacy-enhanced mode. We never copy or redistribute video files.

Video IDs are never guessed: each one is checked through YouTube's oEmbed service for existence and embeddability. Titles and channel names appear exactly as on YouTube, and nothing connects to YouTube until you press play.

For corrections or questions about images, please contact the site operator (a contact channel is being prepared for this prototype).

This site does not ask for registration or personal data. A single cookie (NEXT_LOCALE) remembers your language choice.

Text on this site belongs to its operator. Images may be reused only under the terms of their individual licences.