Samurai Art Museum

In 2017 a museum opened in Berlin-Zehlendorf which is one of the very few in the entire world to be devoted to the art of the Samurai. The businessman Peter Janssen has spent thirty years putting this unique collection of weapons and armour together and is now displaying it in a specially built large room with a skylight.
The choice exhibits give visitors an insight into the culture and artistic virtuosity of the Samurai, Japan’s legendary and influential warrior caste. Originally warriors in the service of the Emperor and the aristocratic families, the Samurai rose in the 12th Century to be Japan’s leading class. The way the warriors thought and acted was governed by a strict code of honour.
The museum shows armour, helmets, masks, swords and sword fittings dating from the 8th to the 19th Centuries. Unlike European armour, that of the Samurai is a complex structure of finely-wrought metal parts, leather, silk and paintwork. It allowed the Samurai the greatest possible freedom in using swords, bows and lances. In the period of peace covering the 18th and 19th Centuries, the armour was primarily a status symbol, as reflected in the valuable materials and heavy decoration used for the helmets.