Yamate 8-Bankan

In detail

Yamate Hachiban-kan (“Yamate House No. 8”) is a two-story wooden Western-style house built in the late Meiji era (1868–1912). It is constructed in an unusual Tudor-revival style, with an assertive stone-arch entryway on the ground level and three wide, half-timbered bay windows spanning the facade above. The interior is arranged like a home museum with European, Asian, and African artworks, some of which can be considered rarities. Visitors enter into a central hall with a handsome staircase straight ahead. On one side are rooms devoted to a display of European art, including sculptures by Rodin and Bourdelle, as well as an unusual bronze figure by Renoir. Printed works by Rembrandt, Durer, Hogarth, Alma-Tadema, and other notable artists are also on view. Fine antique tables, chairs, and other furnishings fill the rooms throughout.

A separate small gallery on the ground floor contains a large collection of carved ebony Makonde statues from East Africa, of the type that inspired Picasso and other modern artists in the early twentieth century. On the second floor, the elegant stairway is framed with open arches and columns. Sets of Buddhist sculptures from Gandhara in northern Afghanistan and others from Thailand are featured in second-floor gallery rooms with subdued lighting. A pair of life-size Buddhist Nio guardian statues in lacquered wood completes this part of the collection. A smaller room on this floor contains several types of African carved wood statues. The bay windows at the front of the house provide an excellent view of the city below and the port in the distance. A further attraction of the collection is a pair of “Saturn’s chairs” believed to grant wishes if a woman sits on the right and a man on the left. Yamate Hachiban-kan is operated by the Uroko Group.