Maeda Tosanokami-ke Museum in Kanazawa: 9,000 Heirlooms of a Distinguished Family of the Kaga Clan

Heirs of Maeda Toshiie Who Sustained the Kaga Clan: Highlights of the Maeda Tosanokami-ke Museum

The Maeda Tosanokami family traces its origin to Maeda Toshimasa, the second son of Maeda Toshiie, the founder of the Kaga clan. As a junior line of the ruling Maeda house, this distinguished family served for generations as senior retainers, sustaining the Kaga Hyakumangoku (the “Million-Koku Kaga,” the largest domain in Edo-era Japan).

The story of this family is preserved in this museum tucked into a corner of the Nagamachi samurai district. Two and a half centuries of accumulated history through the Edo period are displayed here as family heirlooms.

This article introduces the highlights of the Maeda Tosanokami-ke Museum.

Maeda Tosanokami-ke Museum

The Maeda Tosanokami-ke Museum is a city-run museum located in the Nagamachi samurai district of Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture. It houses about 9,000 heirlooms (designated Ishikawa Prefectural Cultural Properties) of the Maeda Tosanokami family, the top retainer family among those who served the Kaga clan, with portions on view in permanent and special exhibitions.

Exhibition Hall: The Story of the Maeda Tosanokami Family Beginning with Toshiie and Matsu

A large graphic panel greets you straight ahead as you enter. Here you can learn the origins of the Maeda Tosanokami family through a family tree, explanatory text, and video.

Maeda Toshiie founded the Kaga clan, and his wife was Matsu. Their second son, Maeda Toshimasa, became the founder of the Maeda Tosanokami family.

Toshimasa was lord of Noto Province, holding 220,000 koku (a unit of rice yield, approximately 180 liters per koku), but he failed to answer Tokugawa Ieyasu’s call to arms at the Battle of Sekigahara (1600), the decisive battle that established Tokugawa hegemony, and lost his domain in the aftermath.

His son Naoyuki was raised by his grandmother Matsu, and in 1615 (the 1st year of the Genna era) was taken into service by Maeda Toshitsune, the 3rd lord of the Kaga clan.

From then on, the Maeda Tosanokami family continued through the generations, lasting 250 years until the Meiji Restoration (1868).

First Exhibition Room: A Permanent Display of Records Telling the Maeda Family’s History

The First Exhibition Room on the first floor is a permanent exhibition that recounts the 250-year journey of the Maeda Tosanokami family through their family heirlooms. Hanging scrolls (kakejiku), paintings, historical documents (komonjo), and portraits of successive heads of the family are displayed throughout the room.

Beyond the cultural property displays, there is another highlight to enjoy: the explanatory panels that introduce the basics of the Kaga clan. The Edo-period daimyo system and the sheer scale of Kaga are clearly explained.

The Kaga clan’s territory spanned 1,022,760 koku across the three provinces of Kaga, Noto, and Etchū. Combined with the Toyama branch domain (100,000 koku), the Daishōji branch domain (100,000 koku), and the 18 villages of the Hakusan foothills shogunate territory, its reach extended across the entire Hokuriku region.

Another panel reveals that of the 286 domains nationwide in 1865 (the 2nd year of the Keiō era), only one held over 1,000,000 koku—the Kaga clan alone. You can grasp just how massive a domain the Maeda Tosanokami family helped to sustain.

Even visitors who are not deeply familiar with Japanese history can study the family heirlooms while learning about the Kaga clan. The exhibition room itself functions as an introductory guide.

This room also features a suit of armor said to have been worn by Maeda Toshimasa.

Rabbit Ears on the Helmet! Maeda Toshimasa’s Armor “Kuro-urushi-nuri Kuro-ito Odoshi Nimaidō Gusoku”

The signature piece of the room is the suit of armor said to have been worn by Maeda Toshimasa: the Black Lacquered Two-Piece Armor with Black Cord (Kuro-urushi-nuri kuro-ito odoshi nimaidō gusoku).

Its most striking feature is the helmet ornament (tatemono) standing atop the headpiece, modeled after a pair of rabbit ears. Finished with silver leaf, it is the symbol of this decorative helmet (kawari kabuto).

Sengoku-era warriors favored such playful helmets for symbolic reasons—rabbits were believed to move only forward and never retreat, making them an auspicious motif of unwavering courage in battle. The rabbit-eared helmet was popular as a symbol of military fortune.

The cuirass is a black-lacquered two-piece cuirass (okegawa nimaidō). The thigh guards (haidate) bear gold-leaf patterns, and the lower two tiers of the cuirass are decorated with silver leaf. The cords binding the armor and the fabric are all unified in black, with gold and silver accenting the focal points. The result reflects the dashing style inherited from his father Toshiie and the refinement passed down from his mother Matsu.

Garden Viewing Room: A Japanese Garden with a Pond Fed by the Ōno-shō Waterway

Next to the First Exhibition Room is a viewing room where you can gaze at the Japanese garden through a glass wall.

This Japanese garden with a pond was created during the era of Kaga clan rule. Water from the Ōno-shō Waterway flowing through Nagamachi is drawn into the pond, surrounded by stone lanterns (ishi-dōrō) and plantings.

Because you view it from indoors, you can comfortably enjoy the wabi-sabi of the Japanese garden even on rainy or snowy days. After viewing the family heirlooms in the exhibition room, take a moment here to relax and experience life in a samurai residence.

Second Exhibition Room: Special Exhibitions Held Four Times a Year, Selected from 9,000 Items

The Second Exhibition Room on the second floor hosts special exhibitions, with displays rotated about four times a year.

About 80 items are selected by theme. Among the roughly 9,000 family heirlooms are first-class historical documents from the Sengoku period to the early Edo period—including Oda Nobunaga’s black-seal letters (kokuin-jō), personal letters (shōsoku) of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and an autograph letter by Maeda Toshiie’s wife Matsu (later Hōshun-in) expressing concern over a grandchild’s illness. Handwritten works by figures known from history textbooks are rotated through different exhibitions.

Currently, the special exhibition "Lords of the Kaga Clan: Their Lives and Legacies" is on view. Documents on the 14 successive lords of the Kaga clan are displayed in a three-part rotation.

Kaga Hyakumangoku, the Kaga Clan, and the Birth of the Maeda Tosanokami Family: Maeda History Around Sekigahara

Behind the rise of the Kaga clan as the “Kaga Hyakumangoku” lies the Battle of Sekigahara. And it is there that the Maeda Tosanokami family begins.

Maeda Toshimasa, the founder of the Maeda Tosanokami family, and Maeda Toshinaga, who would later become the lord of the Kaga clan, were brothers. As members of the Maeda house, each governed his own domain.

In September 1600, the Battle of Sekigahara took place.

The elder brother Toshinaga sided with the Eastern Army (the Tokugawa side), capturing Daishōji Castle on the Hokuriku front and engaging Niwa Nagashige of the Western Army, earning notable achievements. The younger brother Toshimasa, however, did not respond to Tokugawa Ieyasu’s call to arms.

The Eastern Army won the Battle of Sekigahara, and Toshimasa, who had not answered the Tokugawa call, had his domain confiscated (kaieki). He retired in seclusion (insei, withdrawing from public life into quiet retirement) to the Saga district of Kyoto.

In the subsequent reorganization of territory, Toshinaga came to govern his brother’s 220,000 koku as well, and with the addition of the 120,000 koku of Komatsu and 63,000 koku of Daishōji confiscated from the Western Army, the “Kaga clan” known as the “Kaga Hyakumangoku” was born.

Later, Toshimasa’s son Naoyuki was raised by his grandmother Matsu (Hōshun-in) and was taken into service by the 3rd lord of the Kaga clan, Maeda Toshitsune, restoring the family as Kaga retainers. This was the beginning of the Maeda Tosanokami family.

The line of the younger brother Toshimasa can be described as “the side that handed its territory to the main house in the process of forming the Kaga Hyakumangoku.”

Yet despite losing their lands, this bloodline was revived as Kaga retainers and rose to become the top of the Kaga Hakke (the Eight Houses of Kaga, the eight elite retainer families that served as the highest officials of the Kaga clan’s government). This is the Maeda Tosanokami family.

Even just this slice of history reveals plenty of drama. The treasures and documents of the Maeda Tosanokami family that emerged from this story are precisely what is on display in this museum.

From Toshimasa’s Armor to Late Edo Writings: A Museum That Reads 250 Years of the Maeda Tosanokami Family

More than 400 years have passed since Sekigahara. The choice that changed the family’s fate, and the journey of a clan that rose again, both remain here as family heirlooms.

In the letters and paintings displayed quietly throughout the museum, you can sense the history of how each successive head carried the family forward.

When you visit Kanazawa, open the doors of this museum and step into the story of the Maeda Tosanokami family.

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