Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery

Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery is a gallery commemorating the "imperial virtues" of Japan's Meiji Emperor, installed on his funeral site in the Gaien or outer precinct of Meiji Shrine in Tōkyō. The gallery is one of the earliest museum buildings in Japan and itself an Important Cultural Property.

On display in the gallery are eighty large paintings, forty in "Japanese style" and forty in "Western style", that depict, in chronological order, scenes from the Emperor's life and times. The gallery opened to the public in 1926, with the final paintings completed and installed ten years later. The selection and investigation of suitable topics for the paintings was overseen by Kaneko Kentarō, who also served as head of the editorial boards of Dai-Nihon Ishin Shiryō and Meiji Tennōki, major contemporary…