Matsukata Collection
Matsukata Kojiro (1865-1950) was the president of Kawasaki Dockyard and from 1916 through 1923, he invested his own personal fortune in the acquisition of several thousand examples of Western painting, sculpture and decorative arts. He collected these works throughout Europe, but primarily in Paris. In addition to his Western art works, Matsukata is also famous for his collection of ukiyo-e woodblock prints which had been scattered throughout the world. Today approximately 8,000 ukiyo-e prints from the Matsukata collection are housed in the Tokyo National Museum. Matsukata hoped to use these collections in the establishment of an art museum in Tokyo where visitors could come into direct contact with Western art. However, because of the financial problems of 1927, these plans were never realized. Parts of the collection were sold off after the financial collapse, others were destroyed in a warehouse fire in England, and today it is impossible to get a grasp of the original massive scale of these Matsukata collections.
Among these works collected by Matsukata, those known today as the NMWA Matsukata Collection remained in France after World War II, and as part of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, they were briefly owned by France, which in turn donated them to the Japanese people. This collection totals 370 works, including 196 paintings, 80 drawings, 26 prints and 63 sculptures.