Kyoto City Museum Search

Galleries full of beautifully and expressively detailed birds and flowers pervading an atmosphere of elegance

The main theme of this museum is flowers and birds. And, in it is home to several buildings, with the nishi-kan, or west gallery, housing famous pieces of antique Meissen porcelain and the higashi-kan, or east gallery, displaying the flower and bird paintings of one of Japan’s most noted naturalist masters, Atsushi Uemura. Both these Meissen pieces and Uemura paintings are precious treasures passionately collected over many years by the husband-and-wife director team of the museum.
Made for royalty and titled nobility, the antique Meissen (1700s to 1800s) white porcelain pieces feature flowers and birds in their decorations. This collection is truly rare even in worldwide terms.
Meanwhile, the other collection of flowers and birds are the paintings of Atsushi Uemura, a third-generation Uemura following in the footsteps of his grandmother Shoen Uemura and his father Shoukou Uemura, both giants of Japanese painting. A notable feature of Atsushi’s work is that he used pet birds kept in the garden at home as subjects to make his work extremely realistic but, however, at the same time, somehow imbued with brilliant poetical sentiment.