2026.12.12 — 2027.01.30 · Coming soon
National Treasure Pine Trees in Snow and the Four Seasons — Tokyo
Each New Year the Mitsui Memorial Museum shows Maruyama Ōkyo’s National Treasure Pine Trees in Snow, now a seasonal ritual. From 12 December 2026 to 30 January 2027, Pine Trees in Snow and the Four Seasons builds around the screens with paintings, calligraphy and crafts from the collection to show how East Asian art renders the seasons and weather: snow, wind and humid summer nights, each hiding techniques you do not see at first glance. Adult tickets are JPY 1,200 (1,000 online in advance), free for junior-high students and younger.
The snow on Pine Trees in Snow is not painted white; it is the white of the paper, left bare.
On the left screen the needles grow denser towards the bottom for a sense of mass, while brushed gold and scattered gold dust below suggest sunlight on snow and a festive air.
Ōkyo’s pupil Yamaguchi Soken, in Pine and Deer in Snow, builds the snow on the nandina with layers of white paint, the opposite of his teacher.
His screen is scattered with silver dust rather than gold; and in Sakai Hōitsu’s Autumn Grasses and Rabbit sliding doors, the lines of the gale are in fact the grain of thin boards laid on the diagonal.
The “three shikishi”, the most prized of classical calligraphy fragments (Tsugi-shikishi, Sunshōan-shikishi and Masu-shikishi), are shown together here for the first time in about six years.
There is also Mizuno Toshikata’s Meiji series Mitsui Taste: Brocades of the Capital, whose seasonal fashions doubled as advertising for the Mitsui drapery, and four Maruyama-school Seashore in the Four Seasons screens on view for the first time.
Checked · 2026-10-04
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2018 · Kakidai · Photo source · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Preview cropped; enlarge for full image. · Report image rights
Closed 28 December to 3 January; the New Year opening is 4 January.
Some works may rotate, with dates not announced.
Photography is generally not allowed, and there is no food or drink in the galleries.
The galleries have no fixed seats, so no seating plan is needed.
Open official guide ↗12 December 2026 to 30 January 2027, 10am–5pm, last entry 4.30pm. Closed Mondays (open 4 and 11 January) and from 28 December to 3 January.
Asia/TokyoThe Mitsui Memorial Museum is on the 7th floor of the Mitsui Main Building, 2-1-1 Nihonbashi-Muromachi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo; the entrance is in the Nihonbashi Mitsui Tower atrium.
Free for junior-high students and younger; high-school and university students show student ID, and those 70 and over show ID for the reduced rate. Holders of disability certificates (or Mirairo ID) and one companion are free. No date or time booking; entry may be limited when busy. No food or drink in the galleries, and pencils only for notes.
Adults JPY 1,000 (advance)
Confirm accessibility services and companion policies with the organiser before travel.
Dates and entry details refer to this edition; individual sessions may differ.
Maruyama Ōkyo (Mitsui Memorial Museum) · Public domain Image source
Mitsui Memorial Museum
Maruyama Ōkyo, Pine Trees in Snow, right screen (18th century, National Treasure, Mitsui Memorial Museum), shown in this exhibition; a public-domain image.
Information checked on 2026-10-04
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