Arte japonés y japonismo. Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao

The Palacio Collection of Oriental Art, put together by Jos Palacio between 1925 and 1932, became part of the Bilbao Fine Arts Collection in 1953 as a bequest from his heir María de Arechavaleta. It includes more than three hundred pieces, 221 of which belong to the section devoted to Japanese art, dating for the most part from the Edo period in the 18th and 19th centuries: paintings, prints, one of the finest European collections of tsuba (the hand-guards at the top of Japanese sword blades), inrô (small boxes with several compartments that hang from the belt of the kimono), suzuribako (bureau case), namban objects and ceramics for the tea ceremony. What makes the Palacio collection so interesting is the formal and artistic quality of the objets and their quite exceptional nature, this being one of the very few of its kind in the Basque Country.