Birds, Animals, Flowers, and Plants by Kunii Obun and Mochizuki Gyokusen, Kyoto National Museum

Goats and Lambs, Ewes and Rams: Celebrating the Year of the Sheep

Upcoming22 December 2026 – 7 February 2027¥700

New Year feature for the 2027 zodiac: how sheep, rarely seen in Japan, were nonetheless pictured in Japanese art. Gallery 2F-2.

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On now Opening in December 2026

Preview: written before the show opened

In Sesshu's round ink painting, a Daoist immortal in a tall hat points at a few rocks under a pine. In the legend of Huang Chuping, his brother asked where the family's sheep had gone, found only white rocks, and watched them stand up and bleat.

This New Year feature marks 2027's zodiac animal, and the museum's introduction admits the catch: outside Hokkaido, Japan has little pastureland and few sheep. So you meet them at one remove: stone sheep made for a grave, a rubbing from the zodiac stones around a Silla general's tomb in Gyeongju, two scrolls of three sheep, and goats shrunk onto a sword guard and a netsuke. If you're about to draw a sheep on forty nengajō from memory, you're in good company.

It fills one gallery, 2F-2 in the Heisei Chishinkan Wing, on the 700 yen collection ticket (free under 18 and over 70). Fridays run to 8pm. The museum closes 28 December to 1 January, and the Sesshu comes down after 17 January.

Look for

Sesshu's Huang Chuping, After Liang Kai
Look for the immortal in loose ink robes pointing at a heap of rocks, the stones of the legend that turn back into sheep; an Important Cultural Property, on view until 17 January.
Birds, Animals, Flowers, and Plants
Kunii Ōbun and Mochizuki Gyokusen's handscroll puts white sheep and a lamb grazing beside a black goat on a gold ground, with little paper labels naming each animal and flower.
A pair of stone sheep
Two sheep carved in stone to stand at a grave, shown as a pair.
The sheep from Kim Yu-sin's tomb
An ink rubbing of the sheep among the twelve zodiac figures carved on the stones around the tomb of Kim Yu-sin in Gyeongju, Korea.
Goats in miniature
An openwork sword guard and sword-hilt ornaments made in the shape of goats, plus a carved goat netsuke signed Kokei.