Samurai Museum Berlin

About

The Samurai Museum Berlin is a private museum of artifacts and art objects of the Japanese samurai class, from the private collection of the builder Peter Janssen. It opened in 2022 and is located in the Mitte district of Berlin, Germany.

The only Samurai museum in Europe displays over 900 exhibits on 1500 square meters of exhibition space. The entire collection of the museum includes more than 4000 objects. Among them are about 40 complete suits of armor, 200 helmets, 150 masks, 160 swords, and numerous other evidences of samurai culture dating back nearly a millennium. The oldest pieces in the collection date back to the Kofun period (300-538 AD). The majority of the objects date from the late Middle Ages and the early modern period (15th-18th centuries). Top pieces of the collection represent three samurai armors of the Kato clan from the Edo period (1603–1868). Another focus is on blades of famous master smiths of the Kamakura and Namboku-chō periods, which roughly corresponds to the European High Middle Ages (11th-14th centuries). In addition to armor, helmets, masks, weapons, swords, and sword jewelry, the permanent exhibition also offers insights into wide-ranging areas of samurai...

- Barbara Harding: The "Arts of Asia" Conversation with Peter Janssen of the Samurai Art Museum. In: Arts of Asia, July/August 2019: pp. 22–32.

- Eckhard Kremers: The Samurai Art Museum in Berlin. Interview with collector Peter Janssen. (Photographs by Manfred-Michael Sackmann ) In: Ostasiatische Zeitschrift. New Series No. 35, Spring 2018.

- Andreas Platthaus: Samurai und Shamisen. The Peter Janssen Collection. In: FAZ - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung