Tokugawa Art Museum — Shogunate Treasures & National Treasures

The Tokugawa Art Museum (徳川美術館) houses the private collection of the Owari Tokugawa family — one of the three main branches of the Tokugawa shogunate that ruled Japan 1603–1868. The museum displays samurai armor, swords, tea ceremony utensils, Noh theater costumes, calligraphy, and paintings collected by the family over 250+ years. The collection includes nine National Treasures and 59 Important Cultural Properties, making it one of Japan's most significant feudal-era art repositories.

The most famous treasure is the 12th-century illustrated handscroll of The Tale of Genji (源氏物語絵巻) — the world's oldest surviving illustrated narrative and a masterpiece of Heian-period painting. The fragile scrolls are displayed only briefly each year (November, limited viewing to preserve the pigments), but the museum rotates other exceptional pieces quarterly. The adjacent Tokugawa Garden, a traditional daimyo (feudal lord) stroll garden, complements the museum visit with seasonal landscapes and tea houses.