Miho Museum

The Miho Museum is a private art museum located in the Shigaraki neighborhood of Kōka, Shiga Prefecture, Japan, approximately southeast of Kyoto. Opened in 1997, the museum houses a collection of Asian antiquities and Western art assembled by Mihoko Koyama, founder of the spiritual organization Shinji Shumeikai. The institution is notable for both its architectural distinction, having been designed by I. M. Pei, and for the controversies surrounding the provenance of certain works in its collection.

The museum was the realization of a long-held dream by Mihoko Koyama, heiress to the Toyobo textile fortune and one of Japan's wealthiest women. In 1970, Koyama had founded the spiritual movement Shinji Shumeikai, which reportedly grew to 300,000 to 400,000 members worldwide. In 1991, she commissioned the museum to be built near Misono, the Shumei organization's spiritual center and international headquarters in the Shiga mountains. The museum opened in 1997 and has since been operated by the Shumei Cultural Foundation. Takeshi Umehara, a scholar of philosophy and religion, served as its first director. The museum's establishment followed a precedent set by the Church of World Messianity, the parent organization from which Shumeikai derived, which had opened the MOA Museum of Art in Atami in 1982. During construction, the project was expanded as the collection grew, resulting in more underground space than originally planned.

The collection originated with Japanese art that Mihoko Koyama had gathered over more than 40 years, including Shinto and Buddhist art, paintings, ceramics, lacquerware, and tea ceremony utensils. The full holdings comprise approximately 2,000 to 3,000 pieces of Japanese and Oriental art, with 250 to 300 objects on display at any given time. Special exhibitions of Japanese art from the collection are held several times yearly in the North Wing, while permanent exhibitions occupy the South Wing. The museum's collection includes more than 1,200 objects attributed to Achaemenid Central Asia, some of which scholars have linked to the Oxus Treasure, though this claimed findspot has been challenged. Many items were acquired through art dealer Noriyoshi Horiuchi over a six-year period, and some have limited or no known provenance. The total value of the collection has been estimated between $300 million and $1 billion. As of November 2022, the museum holds nine Important Cultural Properties designated by the Japanese government, including two Buddhist statues, a Buddhist painting, a Buddhist scripture, a quiver, a tea bowl, and three hanging scrolls derived from emakimono picture scrolls.

Among the museum's most celebrated works is Zo to kujira-zu byōbu (Elephant and Whale), a late masterpiece by Itō Jakuchū, one of Japan's most popular painters. This work attracted significant attention in Japan in 2008 when it was discovered in an old house in the Hokuriku region. The museum's nine Important Cultural Properties include two hanging scrolls created by cutting sections from the emakimono Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga, and a hanging scroll derived from the Masuda family's emakimono Jigoku zoshi. The museum has also faced serious provenance issues: in 2001, it acknowledged that a sixth-century Bodhisattva statue in its collection was the same sculpture stolen from a public garden in Shandong province, China, in 1994. The museum agreed to return it in 2007; the Chinese government publicly stated that the museum had purchased the statue in good faith on the open market. In 2007, an anonymous Italian prosecutor indicated plans to seek the return of looted ancient Roman art and coins from the museum, and the Yomiuri Shimbun reported that approximately fifty Etruscan, Greek, and Hellenistic works were allegedly the product of illegal trafficking by a Swiss organization reportedly linked to Gianfranco Becchina. The museum denied knowledge of any illegal origins. Highlights of the collection have been featured in traveling exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1996, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien in 1999.

Mihoko Koyama and her daughter Hiroko Koyama commissioned American architect I. M. Pei to design the museum. Pei, already known for the Louvre Pyramid, had previously designed the bell tower at Misono, the Shumei organization's international headquarters, which is visible from the museum's windows. Pei referred to his design as Shangri-La. The building is situated in a hilly, forested landscape, with approximately three-quarters to 80 percent of its 17,400 square meters constructed underground, carved from a rocky mountaintop. This subterranean emphasis resulted partly from local authority requirements limiting visible above-ground construction. The roof is a large glass and steel construction, while the exterior and interior walls and floor are made of warm beige-colored Magny Doré limestone from France, the same material Pei used in the Louvre reception hall. Leslie E. Robertson Associates served as structural engineer. The approach to the museum leads through a roughly 200-meter curved tunnel, designed so that the exit is not initially visible, symbolizing entry into another, paradisiacal world. The tunnel emerges onto a suspension bridge spanning a gorge approximately 100 meters deep, which in 2002 received the Outstanding Structure Award from the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering. The bridge leads to a small plaza, with steps ascending to the museum entrance in a manner reminiscent of traditional Japanese temple approaches. Visitors may use the museum's electric vehicles to traverse this approach route.

The Miho Museum is located in Kōka, Shiga Prefecture, northeast of Kyoto, in the Shigaraki mountainous region. The museum remains under the ownership and operation of the Shumei Cultural Foundation. It continues to function as a private museum presenting rotating exhibitions from its permanent collection, with special exhibitions in the North Wing and permanent displays in the South Wing. The distinctive approach via tunnel and suspension bridge, accessible by museum electric vehicles, forms an integral part of the visitor experience.