East Nagoya · Tokugawa-choNo.1057★★Open in map →

Tokugawa Art Museum

cultureOff the trail — and worth it

A museum in eastern Nagoya holding what the Owari branch of the Tokugawa family actually owned and used. The permanent rooms rebuild the settings those objects belonged in, and the Genji picture scrolls surface for only a few weeks a year.

FromNagoya Station
10-min walk from OzoneJR Chuo Line to Ozone
Get off atOzone Station (JR Chuo Line)
On foot
Tokugawa Art Museum

Directions ↗

The sweet spot

This is one of Nagoya's better-known museums and it is signposted from the station, so it is not a hidden find. What tends to be missed from outside Japan is what kind of collection it is. Most museums assemble their holdings; this one inherited them, which is why a suit of armour, a tea bowl and a bride's lacquer cabinet all sit under the same roof.

Where it is

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What to look for — in walking order

Ryusenko, Tokugawa-enTomio344456 / CC BY-SA 4.0

Main buildingthe hall put up when the museum opened, now a Registered Tangible Cultural Property
Meihin Collection roomsfive permanent rooms on arms, tea, the reception room, Noh and the women's quarters
Special exhibition roomsthe timed showings, the Genji scrolls among them, that change through the year
Hosa Librarythe city's archive of old books next door, entered on the same museum ticket
Tokugawa-enthe pond garden laid out on the old estate, charged as a separate admission

How to actually get there

Nagoya Station → Ozone Station (JR Chuo Line).
Ozone Station south exit → the museum entrance (walk about ten minutes southwest).
Main building → the permanent rooms → the special exhibition rooms → the Hosa Library.
Finish next door at Tokugawa-en, which takes its own admission.

JR Chuo Line to Ozone Station: From Nagoya Station take the JR Chuo Line to Ozone Station, leave by the south exit and walk about ten minutes southwest. Ozone is also served by the Meijo subway line and the Meitetsu Seto Line, so you can join the route from most parts of the city without doubling back through Nagoya Station.
Return from Ozone Station: Walk back the way you came to Ozone Station and take the JR Chuo Line to Nagoya Station, or the Meijo subway line if you are heading for Sakae. The museum stops admitting visitors well before the garden beside it closes, so plan the return around the museum's last entry rather than the last train.

Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

The museum stands in Tokugawa-cho, a quiet corner of Nagoya's Higashi ward, on ground that was once the Owari Tokugawa family's retirement estate. Its holdings run past ten thousand items, nine of them National Treasures. What sets the collection apart is where it came from: these are things one daimyo house owned and used, kept together rather than gathered piece by piece. The permanent rooms are arranged by arms, the tea ceremony, the reception room, Noh and the women's quarters, and each rebuilds the setting its objects belonged in, down to a Noh stage. The works on show rotate about monthly.

How to enjoy it

Doors open at 10:00 and the last entry is 16:30, so a late-morning arrival still leaves the garden next door for afterwards. If the Genji scrolls themselves are what you want, the museum puts a few selected scenes on view each late November and keeps them off display the rest of the year. Admission depends on whether a special exhibition is running, and elementary and junior high school students go in free.

Background & history

The collection begins with objects left by Ieyasu himself, which passed to the Owari branch of the Tokugawa family and grew with each successive head of the house. In 1935 the nineteenth of them, Tokugawa Yoshichika, set up a foundation and opened the museum, on the grounds that the daimyo culture in his keeping was otherwise being lost. The hall built for it then still serves as the main building. Its most celebrated holding, the Tale of Genji picture scrolls, is the oldest narrative scroll painting to survive in Japan.

Before you go

Cash: Admission is paid at the museum entrance and the rate changes with whether a special exhibition is running; elementary and junior high school students are free. The Hosa Library next door is covered by the same ticket, while Tokugawa-en takes its own garden admission, and a combined ticket for all three is sold at the window.
Good to know: The museum is closed on Mondays, shifting to the following weekday when a Monday falls on a public holiday, and it shuts for a stretch around the New Year. The permanent rooms swap their contents on a regular cycle, so a piece seen on an earlier visit may not be out.
Another way: You can also ride the Meijo subway line to Ozone and leave by exit E5, though that is a longer walk in than the JR south exit. The Meguru sightseeing loop bus stops at a halt named for Tokugawa-en, the Tokugawa Art Museum and the Hosa Library, and city buses stop at Tokugawaen Shindeki, which is closer to the entrance than either station.
After you get off: From Ozone Station take the south exit and walk southwest through residential streets for about ten minutes. The museum stands on the same block as Tokugawa-en, and the street signs point to both together.