Half of Japan’s samurais were women reveals groundbreaking new exhibition at British Museum
A groundbreaking new exhibition opening at the British Museum reveals the untold history of the Samurai class in Japan; including the fact that half of them are women.
Samurai It is the first exhibition to explore how the image and myth of the warrior cult was produced, and it claims to challenge everything the public thinks they know about Japanese icons.
We bring together more than 280 objects and digital media from both the collection and 29 national and international lending institutions – Many items, including samurai armor, are on display for the first time – The exhibition includes weapons, armor, paintings, woodblock prints, books, clothes, ceramics and photographs.
Samurai emerged in the early medieval period, from the 1100s to the 1600s, when wealthy families hired warriors to provide private security.
The mercenary group developed into a rural gentry, and by 1615 they had moved away from the battlefield to serve as government officials, scholars, and patrons of the arts.
This was where half the samurai class were women, and although they didn’t fight, they were a vital part of the elite order.
The exhibition also documents the influence of samurai on popular culture, with a special section devoted to film, television, manga, video games and contemporary art, including commissioned works by renowned Japanese artist Noguchi Tetsuya.
“Historians have always been concerned with popular understanding. – as in most cultures – Japanese Collections Asahi Shimbun curator Dr. It’s a bit far from where they’re being interpreted,” Rosina Buckland said. Independent.
“There are distances in time and space, and a popular understanding that can be easily consumed, a definition that can be easily understood, spreads.
“Hollywood movies and images spread around the world and become fixed as people’s ideas, but historians know that when you dig below the surface you find something quite different. There is some truth in it, but it is exaggerated.”
Divided into three sections, the exhibition explores the samurai’s role as honorable, honorable warriors, their evolution into a cultural bureaucrat class, and their influence on popular culture today.
Dr Buckland says a rich and layered cultural environment emerged after the samurai stopped fighting in 1615.
“They were practically non-combatants during this period,” he says. “They are warriors in name only. They are like a standing army that has never had to fight because there have been 250 years of peace.”
“So we show a samurai dressed in normal everyday clothes, like business attire. We show them that there are women, too. Half the samurai class were women, and there is a woman’s robe, her daily hair care tools, a dressing set, a hand mirror, and an etiquette book. There are a lot of cultural pursuits in this section. Books that the samurai published or works of art that they liked.”
Samurai reveals that many of the myths about the group have been shaped by politics, nostalgia, and global popular culture long after they have passed away.
In peacetime, especially in the early 20th century, a politically charged period for Japan as it embarked on colonial expansion, Dr. Buckland says the samurai image was manipulated to mobilize a national identity.
Some of the exhibition highlights include a rare suit of samurai armor newly acquired by the Museum, complete with a prestigious helmet and the gold standard in the form of iris petals, designed to make the wearer both “identifiable and intimidating”.
Others include a vermilion-red firewoman’s jacket, a rare portrait of a 13-year-old samurai who led the embassy at the Vatican in 1582. Modern installations include a Louis Vuitton suit inspired by Japanese armor and references to popular video games. Assassin’s Creed: Shadows (2025) and Nioh 3 (2026).
“We use this well-known word ‘samurai’ to introduce people to the richness of Japanese culture and the complexity of history, and to explain all the different roles they have had over the centuries,” says Dr Buckland. “Because they are elite, they have the best things, the highest quality objects. This allows us to question this popular understanding.”
Samurai Valid between February 3 and May 4, 2026.
