All thirty scrolls of Ito Jakuchu's Colorful Realm of Living Beings will be shown together in Japan for the first time in about a decade. The Museum of the Imperial Collections, Sannomaru Shozokan, in Tokyo announced the special exhibition, titled National Treasure: Doshoku Sai-e, A World of Colors, which will run from 4 February to 14 March 2027 to mark the museum's grand reopening.

Jakuchu, who worked in Kyoto in the 18th century, painted the thirty scrolls as his defining achievement, and the series was designated a national treasure in 2021. The coming display will be the first time the complete set has been gathered in Japan since 2016, the first such showing since the museum opened in 1993, and the first since the works received national-treasure status. Every scroll will remain on view for the whole run, rather than being rotated.

The exhibition is arranged in three chapters. The first follows the series through spring and summer, including Peonies and Butterflies, thought to be among the earliest works in the set, and Sunflowers and Rooster from 1759, in which a rooster stands amid the colour contrast of sunflowers and morning glories. The third chapter turns to autumn and winter, with Rooster and Nandina and Golden Pheasant in Snow, both from the early 1760s, the latter scattering white pigment to suggest fallen snow against a vividly coloured bird.

Between them, a middle chapter sets Jakuchu beside the painters who shared Kyoto's crowded art world in his lifetime. Maruyama Okyo's Peonies and Peacock from 1776 and Yosa Buson's Kites and Crows, an important cultural property from around 1778 to 1783, show a different approach to the same bird-and-flower subjects, letting visitors compare Jakuchu's dense colour with the observational painting that was reshaping the city's art at the time.