Gen'ei-bon Kokin Wakashū

The Gen'ei-bon Kokin Wakashū is a classical manuscript in the Tokyo National Museum collection, written with careful calligraphy on traditional Japanese paper. The work displays the masterful brushwork of its era and preserves an important poetry anthology from Japanese cultural history.

The manuscript was created in 1120 during the Heian period, when classical poetry was the art form of the educated elite. The calligrapher Fujiwara no Sadazane produced a work that reflects the poetic culture of that prosperous era.

The manuscript holds court poems that shaped Japanese poetry for centuries, showing how valued these verses were in society at the time. You can still sense how important this collection became for the development of Japanese literary tradition.

Visitors can find the manuscript in the permanent collection of Tokyo National Museum in Ueno Park, where artworks and historical objects are displayed in the main building. It helps to bring a museum guide, as many works are difficult to understand without additional explanation.

The manuscript comes from the Mitsui family, a powerful merchant house that eventually made this artwork accessible to the public. This connection to a merchant family shows how such works were privately preserved before entering museums.