If you have the opportunity of visiting Venice, you do not have to miss the small but extremely equipped Museum of Oriental Art which deserves a visit in depth. We advise you to visit it with a Guide as the enormous quantity of objects cannot be understood in its completeness without a suitable explanation.
The collection dates back to the last decades of the Nineteenth century, when the Count of Bards Enrico di Borbone, during his journey through Asia, collected about 30000 pieces. They were first placed at Vendramin Calergi Palace, nowadays the siege of the Casino, where he used to reside and where he wanted a permanent exposition to be organized too. After the end of the First World War, this collection was recognized, by the Italian Government, as a war damage to be paid. Since 1928, as a consequence of a convention between the State and the Municipality of Venice, Ca’ Pesaro has welcomed the collection. The Government bought, out of the future and final setting up of the museum, Palazzo Marcello, along the Canal Grande, where also what is now kept in the storehouses will find a suitable location.
The Museum owns most of the instruments necessary to the performance of the main genres of traditional Japanese music, an amazing Onna norimono, such as a Japanese sedan chair for ladies dating back to the Nineteenth century, a remarkable collection of Japanese lacquers, in which you will find also the kai-oke or receptacles for painted shells. Tradition wants that since 1000 a.C. such kai-oke had been given as presents to the newly-wedded couples: each couple of shells has got the same design inside and the game consists in putting them covered at random on the ground and by lifting two of them in turn, being able to find the couple with the same design, as for the ‘memory’ of our days.
Remarkable is also the room where you can see, in rotation, some pieces of the greatest collection of kosode, such as Japanese dresses for ladies, of the Edo period, that the Museum owns. The dresses, which are all restored, are kept in a warehouse for preservation reasons and lack of expository rooms. On the walls of the same room there are some paintings of the ukiyoe school which means representation of the ‘fluctuating world’, among which some Hokusai’s paintings too. Of course, also the collection of Japanese  and Chinese ceramics deserves a visit.