The Otsuka Museum of Art in Naruto City, Tokushima Prefecture, is a full-scale museum focusing on the copies of Western arts fired on ceramic panels.

This unique art museum was built in Naruto City by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the company’s foundation.  Naruto City is the birthplace of the company.  The museum, a total area of over 2,900 square meters, is one of the largest art museums in Japan, taking about 10 years to be completed in 1998.  Persistent negotiations were needed to get approval of many museums and several authorities in the world in which the originals belong.  It goes without saying that there were all kinds of technical hardships, to make faithful replicas of ceramic panels.  This site was within a national park, so the building construction work was troublesome.  In short, they leveled a hill first to build a five-storied building then put the removed soil back.  The museum displays over 1,000 different copies of priceless masterpieces mainly belonging to over 190 museums in 25 countries.  All the copies are fired on ceramic panels faithfully following the originals masterpieces.  Before the museum opened, the son of Pablo Picasso and the curators of the corresponding art museums visited Japan to check how they were perfect likeness of the originals.  Different from the originals, they are no more than replicas.  But, as the material of these copies are ceramic, their lifetimes are thought to be over 2,000 years.  The photo shows, in order from the top, Sistine Chapel, Scrovegni Chapel and The Last Supper.

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