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1 April 1933 (Shōwa 8)
Japan (administered by the Ministry of Education, Tokyo)
Forces
The State (certification by the Minister of Education)
Owners and the antiquities market
About 15 min read
On 1 April 1933 (Shōwa 8), the "Law concerning the Preservation of Important Art Objects" was promulgated and put into force. Its enforcement regulations were Ministry of Education Ordinance No. 10 of the same day. Certified items were announced in the official gazette and were called "Important Art Objects," abbreviated "Jūbi." The word used throughout is "certification" (nintei), not "designation." The categories were roughly nine, including paintings, sculpture, buildings, documents, books, calligraphy, swords, craft objects and archaeological materials. Swords were one of the categories of art and craft that the system explicitly listed.
National Treasures were barred from being taken out of the country, but undesignated cultural properties had no such basis. The picture scroll "Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki," a representative work of the genre, was put up at a sale at the Tokyo Bijutsu Club in 1923 (Taishō 12) to divide the estate of the Sakai family, and an Osaka antiques dealer won it for 188,900 yen. The dealer, unable to find a buyer in the slump after the Great Kantō Earthquake, asked Yamanaka & Co., which sold antiques widely overseas, to broker it, and in 1932 (Shōwa 7) Tomita Kōjirō of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston came to Japan and bought it. Public anger rose and Tomita was called a traitor, though he himself resented this, saying he had only made a regular commercial transaction. The essence of the problem is said to have been the failure of the legal framework to prevent the outflow of national-treasure-class art, and this law was promulgated and enforced the following year, on 1 April 1933. The result was a mechanism under which exporting items of particular importance required the permission of the Minister of Education.
According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the standard for certification was the so-called quasi-national treasure, an object "qualified to be a national treasure but not yet one." In practice, however, items with no risk of export and items of unsettled value were also certified. This is explained by the fact that the system was an emergency measure in which the prevention of overseas outflow came first and the work was done quickly.
The first certification took place on 25 July 1933, when 504 items were announced. Certification continued: more than 200 items were certified on 4 August 1945, just before the end of the war, and more than 200 again on 28 May 1949, the date of the final announcement. Certification was carried out until 1949 (Shōwa 24).
The total differs by source. The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives 7,898 art and craft objects and 299 buildings, a total of 8,197. Other sources give figures such as 7,983 art and craft objects, and a note records that the 2016 comprehensive catalog of certified works gives 8,326, so the exact number is not settled. A separate count for swords could not be confirmed in the present research.
Swords, together with ukiyo-e, old calligraphy and imperial autographs, are said to be among the categories certified most heavily. The concentration in particular categories is explained by the work having been done quickly with prevention of overseas outflow as the first priority. Swords are small, easy to carry and tend to attract foreign collectors, so they may have been one of the categories where outflow was feared; this, however, is an inference from the aim of the system and not a fact confirmed in sources.
A later reference on swords is the eight-volume "Nihontō Jūyō Bijutsuhin Zenshū," published in 1985 and 1986. It has been pointed out that a considerable number of items could not be illustrated or explained because photographs and data no longer exist. This reflects the character of a system in which certification was hurried. That some swords appear on the certification lists but their present whereabouts are unknown is also a difficulty for anyone tracing a sword's provenance.
In the same period, the National Treasures Preservation Law had by 1950 made 5,824 art and craft objects and 1,059 buildings old National Treasures. Important art objects, by contrast, was a system that cast a net to protect from outflow items that had reached national-treasure standard but were not designated. If national treasure was a system of "selecting strictly and involving the state even in the cost of preservation," important art object was a system of "certifying widely and first stopping only exports." The two systems treated the same art and craft objects in a complementary way. For sword owners, designation as a National Treasure was limited to a handful of famous blades, while certification as an important art object extended public evaluation to far more swords. This reading, however, is an inference from the structure of the systems and not something confirmed in a source that directly shows the owners' awareness at the time.
One may encounter the term "Important Art Object" or "Jūbi" in descriptions of swords, in sale catalogs and in the trade. The term means that the item was certified by the Minister of Education between 1933 and 1949 and announced in the official gazette. It is not an item actively preserved and managed within the present designation system like a National Treasure or Important Cultural Property; it is a prewar certification whose effect has been kept by a supplementary provision. Certification can be cancelled only in two cases: upgrade to Important Cultural Property and permission to export. A sword described as "Jūbi" is therefore either an item for which export still requires permission, or one whose certification has disappeared through an upgrade or an export permit. Confirming the present certification status is indispensable to telling which.
The position of the system can be summarized as follows. In 1933, designated National Treasures could not be taken out of the country, while other items could be traded freely. Certification of important art objects cast a net over the space between. In place of strict review and subsidies to owners as with designation, it was a light regulation that made only export subject to permission. Certification did not prevent domestic sales, and the owner's rights were not greatly impaired. This lightness made it possible to certify many items in a short time, but it also became a reason why items of unsettled value were mixed in.
The law was repealed on 29 August 1950 (Shōwa 25) when the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties took effect. A supplementary provision, however, kept the law in effect for the time being for items already certified. Certification can be cancelled only in two cases: when an item is upgraded to Important Cultural Property, or when export abroad is permitted. Between 1950 and 2008, 25 items were cancelled through export permits, and the number still in effect in 2008 is estimated at some six thousand.
That swords marked "Jūbi" are still discussed today is a remnant of this system. Separately from National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties, prewar certification can remain in effect. Alongside the National Treasures of the National Treasures Preservation Law, this system was the second pillar by which prewar Japan tried to bring old art, swords included, under state management. Its aim of preventing outflow has left to the present day the question of how to reconcile the freedom to trade swords privately with their preservation as cultural properties.
- 1871 (Meiji 4): The Koki Kyūbutsu Hozonkata is issued. - 1872 (Meiji 5): The Jinshin Survey is carried out. - 1897 (Meiji 30): The Ancient Temples and Shrines Preservation Law is promulgated; the first designations are made on 28 December. - 1923 (Taishō 12): The Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki is put up at a sale. - 1929 (Shōwa 4): The National Treasures Preservation Law is promulgated and takes effect on 1 July. - 1932 (Shōwa 7): The Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki is bought by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. - 1933 (Shōwa 8): The Law concerning the Preservation of Important Art Objects takes effect; the first 504 items are certified on 25 July. - 1934 (Shōwa 9): Kokin Denju Yukihira is designated a National Treasure. - 1949 (Shōwa 24): The Hōryū-ji Kondō fire (26 January). Certification of important art objects ends. - 1950 (Shōwa 25): The Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties is promulgated (30 May) and enforced (29 August). - 1951 (Shōwa 26): The first designations of new National Treasures are made on 9 June.