Masterpieces of the Renaissance from the Musée du Louvre

Now showing9 September 2026 – 13 December 2026¥2,400

Over 50 Louvre masterpieces trace 15th-16th century Renaissance art, including the Japan debut of Leonardo da Vinci's "Portrait of a Woman" (La Belle Ferronnière).

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On now All of November 2026

The woman in Leonardo's Portrait of a Woman turns her body one way and her face another, which the National Art Center's senior curator, Ayako Miyajima, names as the painting's key innovation. Slightly smaller than life-size and believed to show Lucrezia Crivelli, a favourite of Duke Ludovico Sforza, it is in Japan for the first time, 52 years after the Mona Lisa.

More than 50 Louvre works are grouped in four sections: travel, technique, the reading of antiquity, and portraiture. Dürer's rhinoceros woodcut, about 24 by 30 centimetres, sits among them. He drew it without ever seeing the animal, much as you find the right exit at Roppongi Station from a friend's text.

Adults pay ¥2,400 at the door, and the galleries stay open until 20:00 on Fridays and Saturdays. From 7 to 13 December entry is by timed reservation only. Miyajima says this thematic arrangement of the loans won't be repeated.

Editor's pick

Leonardo's Portrait of a Woman, La Belle Ferronnière, in Japan for the first time: her body turns one way, her face another. More than 50 Louvre works around it, including Dürer's rhinoceros woodcut, made without his ever seeing one.

Look for

Leonardo's Portrait of a Woman
A slightly under-life-size sitter whose body and face face different ways, with an expression the museum's own essay says is hard to read.
Dürer's The Rhinoceros
A 1515 woodcut of an armoured rhinoceros that Dürer made from descriptions and sketches, printed eight times in all.
Raimondi's The Judgment of Paris
An engraving after Raphael, the only surviving record of Raphael's composition for the scene.
Titian's Portrait of Francis I of France
A royal portrait of the French king, painted around 1538.