Hakutsuru Fine Art Museum

The Hakutsuru Fine Art Museum (白鶴美術館, Hakutsuru Bijutsukan) is a private art museum in Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, that opened in 1934. Founded by Kanō Jihei, the seventh head of the Hakutsuru Sake Brewing Company, it was among the first private museums established in Japan. The museum holds approximately 1,450 works, including two National Treasures and twenty-two Important Cultural Properties, with particular strengths in Chinese bronzes and ceramics, Japanese paintings and writings, and Near Eastern carpets. Its significance lies both in the quality of its collections and in its status as a pioneering private institution that has remained active for nearly a century.

Kanō Jihei (1862-1951), also known by the literary name Tsuruō (鶴ō, "Old Crane"), established the museum in 1934 to make his family's art collection accessible to the public. The museum began with approximately 500 antique works and gradually expanded to its present size. Throughout its history, the institution has endured numerous challenges including war, aerial bombardment, postwar chaos, and the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995, yet has succeeded in preserving its holdings. In May 1964, the Kengu-Sutra (賢愚経) was designated as a National Treasure. The museum marked its sixtieth anniversary in 1995 with the opening of a new wing. Kanō Hideo (1934-2010), the tenth-generation head of the Hakutsuru Sake Brewing Company and fourth president of the museum, assembled the Near Eastern carpet collection that became the focus of the new wing.

The collection spans multiple media and civilizations. Chinese art is represented by bronzes and ceramics. Japanese holdings include silverware, mirrors, jewelry, writings, and paintings. A significant addition came in 1995 with the establishment of the new wing devoted to Near Eastern carpets, a field in which the museum has been described as a pioneering institution in Japan, given the rarity of large, colored, woven carpet collections in the country. The museum also holds a gold necklace with jadeite magatama from the Kofun period, designated as an Important Cultural Property.

The two National Treasures are both works of religious literature in scroll format. The first consists of two Nara-period scrolls from the Sutra of the Wise and Foolish, attributed to Emperor Shōmu. The second comprises seventy-one scrolls spanning the Nara to Edo periods of the Instruction Manual on the Nirvana Sutra. These works represent some of the most important surviving examples of Buddhist textual art in Japan. The Kofun-period gold necklace with jadeite magatama is also of particular note as an Important Cultural Property.

The museum is situated on the west bank of the Sumiyoshi River, at the foot of Mount Rokkō, in an area where the seasonal changes are pronounced. The main building (Honkan), constructed in 1934, is a reinforced concrete structure with a copper-tiled roof that has been praised as a notable example of Shōwa-period architecture combining Eastern and Western, traditional and modern elements. The 1934 complex also includes an earthen storeroom and an office building. A tea house (chashitsu) dating to 1929 predates the museum itself. All of these structures are Registered Tangible Cultural Properties. The new wing, opened in October 1995, was designed to accommodate the Near Eastern carpet collection.

The Hakutsuru Fine Art Museum is located in the Sumiyoshi Yamate area of Kobe. The institution is privately owned and operated, originally founded by the Kanō family of the Hakutsuru Sake Brewing Company. The museum opens to the public twice yearly. When the main building is open, special exhibitions featuring carpets from the collection are held. The museum maintains a website at http://www.hakutsuru-museum.org/.