Osaka City Museum of Fine Arts

What makes it special

The museum holds about 8,700 Japanese and Chinese paintings, sculptures and crafts and shows them in rotation, with works lent by temples and shrines, so what is on the walls changes with each exhibition.

Much of the collection arrived as gifts. The Abe Collection brought Chinese painting, the Yamaguchi collection brought Chinese Buddhist sculpture and crafts, and the Konishi family gave material linked to the painter Ogata Korin. Other named gifts, among them the Taman and Cazal collections, fill out the rest with Chinese and Japanese sculpture and crafts.

Buddhist and Shinto religious art sits beside hanging scrolls, ceramics and lacquerware, and most of what you see is Asian work. The Sumitomo family gave the city the land and its pond garden, Keitakuen.

Visiting

The Keitakuen combined ticket covers the garden and the museum's own exhibitions, though not the special ones, and is valid only on the day you buy it. Special exhibitions are priced on their own, so say which you want at the desk.

The park-level entrance takes you up an escalator into the central hall. This hall, and most of the building outside the galleries, is a free zone with the museum shop, and a terrace off it looks over Keitakuen.

Leave large bags in the coin-return lockers on B2, at the B1 entrance or on the first floor, and long umbrellas in the stands. Keep the ticket stub attached, because a torn-off stub voids it. Photography is banned in most gallery rooms.

Tips

Some visitors enter free or at a reduced rate on age or address, so carry ID that shows both, such as a driving licence. Students and high school pupils pay a different rate from adults, so bring a student card.

Big temporary exhibitions draw crowds of Osaka locals, so for a major show give yourself extra time.